


Refrain For Justice

by Mangaluva



Category: Batman Beyond, Batman: The Killing Joke (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Amnesia, Characters and relationships will be added as they appear or become relevant, Child Soldiers, Found Family, Gen, PTSD, Physical Disability, Time Travel, Trauma, Yep there's a version of The Killing Joke in this, grieving and loss, the Teen Titans are in it but it ain't a Teen Titans fic sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-20 10:39:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 43,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11919159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangaluva/pseuds/Mangaluva
Summary: Two years after the defeat of the Reach, a mysterious man with amnesia and some surprising relations appears near the remains of Mount Justice. The Team takes him in, curious about what secrets could lie behind his strange appearance, but the Light is still moving in the Shadows and what they have yet to face goes beyond what they could have ever imagined.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a concept that’s been bouncing around my head for a while--I’m glad I finally came up with a plot for it. I want to send out all of my love to Isis_the_Sphinx and my dear Senpai, Embleer_Frith0323, for helping me hammer out several ideas and threads for this fic and for being fantastic casual beta readers. We all love Terry dearly and I’m having a lot of fun writing him and the rest of the Batfam for this. Special bonus brownie points of love to Isis_the_Sphinx for helping me get a goddamn title for this thing.
> 
> I’m not gonna start properly posting this until I finish A Better Cage, mainly as a tactic to make my ass actually string together the rest of the scenes I’ve got for that fic to FINISH it, but I wanted to post a taster to gauge interest and therefore motivate myself to get on with it faster XD

{ _ Rhode Island _ }

{ _ July 8, 22:31 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

The Team had begun, as such things do, as a small group of friends trying to make a change. And make a change they had--they’d built a community, a  _ family _ , that had just continued to grow. Members had come and gone, either leaving the superhero life or joining the Justice League, but the five survivors of the first six members of the Team still stayed, teaching and guiding the next generation of superheroes. They were the five leaders of the Team, a group with no single, centralized leader but a group of adults who’d grown up doing what they did and wanted to make sure that other kids who wanted to be heroes got to grow up. 

 

Tim Drake never went on a single Team mission without being a little amazed and honoured that he was a part of something like this. Years ago he’d just been a kid with a camera and a desperate longing to protect people the way Batman and Robin did, and now he  _ was _ Robin, not just fighting muggers, murderers and mobsters in Gotham but the real monsters that threatened the whole world. He was a kid with some cool weapons and special training in martial arts and criminology, and he was fighting alongside aliens, sorcerers and cyborgs. He was considered  _ on their level _ . 

 

It was a dream that he never wanted to wake up from.

 

Of course, the life was not without cost. On the flight back from the mission, Robin kept finding his gaze drawn to Superboy and Miss Martian, the latter sitting on the central pilot’s seat and the former sitting immediately at her right hand. While Gar and the others were chatting excitedly about pulling off another successful Intergang bust, the two senior members of the Team were watching the scenery pass outside of the cloaked ship with an air of quiet solemnity.

 

He didn’t need the telepathic link to guess what was on their minds. Dick had once confessed that any sign of a boom tube or any other sort of portal never failed to ignite a spark of hope in him--hope that maybe it would turn out, finally, to be a lead on the sixth missing Team Founder. Two years on, there’d been neither hide nor hair of Wally West, but at least one Founder always found an excuse to come along to any mission that involved portals or alien tech  _ just in case, _ even when it was a mission like busting a smuggling handover, something simple enough that even a brand-new Team member like Cyborg could handle it easily.

 

Nervous of being caught staring, he turned his attention back to the rest of the team’s excited chatter. They’d already debriefed over video link as soon as they’d boarded the bioship and were en route to drop Robin off in Gotham. The rest all lived together on the nature reserve in Qurac that Gar had inherited from his mother and returned to live on with M’gann after the destruction of their home in Mount Justice. The isolated reserve had been perfect for Beast Boy, who unlike his adoptive sister couldn't change his colour--but the animals didn’t mind, and the wide open spaces where he’d grown up felt much more like home to Gar than the confines of Mount Justice had. A zeta tube installation was all it took to keep the pair in close touch with their friends and family and allow them to continue going on missions with the Team, though Miss Martian had stayed off of the Team for nearly a year after the defeat of the Reach. She’d said it was to focus on looking after Gar, who’d lost his home twice now, but Robin privately suspected it was more to do with her breakup with Lagoon Boy and the return of her relationship with Superboy, who’d also moved out to the reserve after a while. The reserve had become quite a haven for those who, for various reasons, struggled to live inconspicuously among the general populace, and the six residents had become quite a close-knit subset of the Team. In truth, Robin felt a little awkward going on missions with them--he felt like a bit of an outsider, and it made him miss the closeness of Gotham’s vigilantes. He, Batman, Nightwing, Batgirl and Spoiler were as close as M’gann, Conner, Gar, Victor, Kori and Raven had become, and as much as he knew it was crucial to be able to work well with all members of the Team and the League as comrades, he loved working with his family above all.

 

_ Should be back in plenty of time to get a few hours of patrol in with Batman, _ he thought, checking the time. He was about to send Stephanie a text to let her know that the mission had gone smoothly and he’d be back early when Miss Martian looked up sharply as the ship  _ beeped. _

 

“What’s wrong?” Superboy asked as Miss Martian projected a map and tracking signal on a screen in front of herself.

 

“She’s picking up an odd signal,” Miss Martian said, moving the display to the window at the front of the ship so all of them could see. “It’s fading fast, but there was definitely a strange energy spike… at Mount Justice.”

 

Superboy and Beast Boy adopted grim expressions to match the slight drop in Robin’s gut at the mention of their destroyed former base. Starfire’s natural cheer dimmed a little in response to her teammates’ sudden serious, but Raven, sitting next to her, was already naturally grim and showed no particular response to the information. 

 

Cyborg also frowned as he connected his systems up to the Bio-ship to have a look at the signal himself. “Don’t have any energy signals like it in my databases,” he said. “Should we check it out?”

 

“Let’s take a look,” Superboy said with a nod. “We’re close by anyway.” He exchanged a brief look with M’gann and Robin saw it flicker in their eyes: the brief spark of hope that none of them could ever let go of when it came to unknown portals or signals.

 

It took them less than ten minutes to reach the remains of Mount Justice. Two years after the mountain’s destruction, trees and grass were starting to grow back over it, feeding off the fertile ash and making the mountain’s broken shape look more natural. It was still an unpleasant sight to those who had once called it home and still found themselves tracing out a more familiar peak of stone than the low-slung remnants. 

 

The area was still very much closed to the public, though, which made it odd to see, through the night vision filter, somebody walking a dog on the beach near the mountain.

 

“What’s a dog walker doin’ out there at a quarter to eleven at night?” Cyborg asked in confusion.

 

“Perhaps the dog is nocturnal?” Starfire suggested. “It is very kind of his human to stay up so late to walk with him!”

 

“Sorry, Star, but… dogs aren’t nocturnal,” Beast Boy said with absolute authority. “Do you think they’re something to do with the weird signal? I mean, it  _ is _ weird that they’re there…”

 

“I’ll check it out,” Miss Martian said, standing up. “Robin, do you have a flashlight?”

 

“Sure,” Robin said, pulling one out of the holster on his belt and tossing it to her. 

 

The martian shapeshifted into a human police officer, taking on the appearance of a middle-aged woman. “Cyborg, can you take over as pilot?”

 

“Sure,” Cyborg said, giving her a thumbs-up with his mostly flesh hand while his fully robotic arm stayed plugged into the console. It lit up as the piloting spheres by Miss Martian’s seat went dim.

 

“Be careful,” Superboy said, gently taking her hand. She nodded, kissed him on the cheek, then went invisible and dropped out of the airship. The whole team felt the slight presence of her linking them up psychically, allowing them to see and hear what she saw and heard. She landed softly behind some rubble not far away from the man and the dog, scoping them out before going closer. The image grew sharper as she shifted the cones and rods in her eyes for night vision, allowing her to see the two figures more clearly.

 

The guy was young, maybe college-aged, white with longish black hair that hung over his eyes and brushed his broad shoulders. He was dressed pretty normally in jeans, a black t-shirt and a brown jacket. The dog at his side was a huge black Great Dane. It wasn’t on a leash, but was walking calmly at the man’s side until it paused, looking in Miss Martian’s directions, ears pricking and nose twitching. 

 

“What’s the matter, boy?” the guy said warily, looking at where Miss Martian was, squinting through the darkness that would keep her covered even if she couldn’t turn invisible. “Somebody there?”

 

Miss Martian ducked behind the rubble, went visible, then strode out, turning on the flashlight and pointing it at the man. He winced and threw a hand up over his eyes. “You!” she called, shifting her voice to sound more like a middle-aged woman. “This area is off-limits to the public! I’m going to have to ask you to leave!”

 

“Oh? Sorry, I didn’t know,” the stranger said, looking down at his dog and then returning to squinting at Miss Martian past his hand. Miss Martian pointed the flashlight down a little so it wasn’t directly in his face. “This might sound like kind of a weird question, officer,” the man said, lowering his hand, “but, uh… where  _ am _ I?”

 

“You’re on private property, young man,” Miss Martian said sternly. “How did you get in here? What’s your name?”

 

“It’s Trey. Trey Malone… I think,” the young man said uncertainly, “and I don’t know how I got here. I woke up here.” He patted his jeans and jacket pockets, turning a couple of them inside out. “I’m sorry, I don’t seem to have anything on me…”

 

“You woke up here? What’s the last thing you remember?” Miss Martian asked. 

 

“ _ Partied too hard tonight? _ ” Beast Boy thought with a snigger.

 

“ _ Mount Justice has a few security systems still online and none’ve them were set off, _ ” Cyborg said. “ _ I’d like to see the blackout drunk who could do  _ that _.” _

 

“ _ Why’d he say ‘I think’ after giving her his name? _ ” Robin wondered. 

 

Trey was looking from his dog, to the beach, to Miss Martian with a confused expression. “I don’t,” he said finally, absentmindedly scratching his dog’s ears. “Remember, I mean. I woke up here, but before that… nothing. I mean, I know the names of things, I know you’re a police officer, stuff like that, but I just… don’t know where I am, or how I got here, or where I’m from or anything.”

 

“ _ Just an amnesiac, _ ” Raven thought boredly. “ _ Drop him off at a police station. Somebody’s probably looking for him. _ ”

 

“ _ Hold on, _ ” Superboy interrupted. “ _ We don’t know what he has to do with that energy spike. Is he telling the truth, M’gann? _ ”

 

“ _ I can’t be sure without a deep probe, _ ” Miss Martian said uneasily. “ _ He does feel… uncertain. And lonely. _ ”

 

“Can you help me, officer?” Trey asked.

 

Which was when the sea monster burst out of the ocean and attacked.

 

“Team, Go!” Superboy ordered, jumping out of the Bio-ship as soon as Cyborg opened up an exit hatch. Beast Boy, in hawk form, and Raven flew out after him. Cyborg detached from the ship, taking Starfire’s hand as the deceptively strong young alien picked up him and Robin to fly them down to beach. The last thing they saw before Miss Martian dropped the visual aspect of the psychic link was her grabbing Trey and his dog and flying them out of the way as a giant tentacle slammed into the beach where they’d been standing.

 

Robin turned on the night vision in his lenses and immediately wished he hadn’t. The thing was  _ huge,  _ like a giant squid crossbred with Godzilla, a dozen tentacles flailing at the beach. There were several bright flashes as Starfire pushed the monster back with a flurry of starbolts. Conner pinned down one of the flailing tentacles and Raven cut it off with a blade of black light.

 

_ This is above your weight class _ , Robin told himself.  _ Fall back, analyze, strategize. Everything has a weak point. _ He ran towards the pile of old rubble, half-sunken into the sand, that Miss Martian had dragged Trey and and his dog behind. The Great Dane was snarling angrily, hackles raised, ears lying back flat. Trey was crouched down with an arm over the dog’s neck, gaze fixed on the monster, which had to be visible to him only in the flashes of light from Starfire’s powers and Cyborg’s laser blasts. Despite the size of the creature, Trey didn’t look afraid. He was watched it with his eyes narrowed. 

 

“I’ll protect them,” Robin said, raising his cloak to shield himself from a spray of water. 

 

Miss Martian nodded, shapeshifting back to her usual appearance. “ _ I can’t get into its mind, _ ” she said, sounding troubled. “ _ I don’t think it  _ has _ one. _ ”

 

“It’s got tentacles, worry about those!” Cyborg yelled aloud. Miss Martian flew off to help him fend off the long appendages that were striking randomly at the beach.

 

“Are you okay?” Robin asked Trey.

 

“Uhhh… yeah,” Trey said, blinking at Robin in confusion. “...What’s happening?”

 

“Just stay close,” Robin said, turning to watch the monster. “ _ Miss Martian!” _ He thought as loudly as he could. “ _ Raven! Can you lift it telepathically out of the water?” _

 

_ “You got a plan, Robin? _ ” Beast Boy asked. He’d turned into a gigantic seagull and was tugging at one of the creature’s tentacles.

 

“ _ Looking for a weak point, _ ” Robin replied. Miss Martian and Raven’s eyes glowed as the two psychics began pouring power into pulling the huge creature out of the water.  _ It’s got a mouth and a hell of a lot of fangs, but--are those gills? Dammit, I can’t quite see from this distance if those are gills under the scales… _

 

“Look out!” Trey yelled, tackling Robin to the ground as a tentacle whipped closely over their heads. It got close enough for Robin to see that it was covered in ridges of sharp-looking barbs.

 

“Good night vision,” Robin gasped. “Thanks.”

 

“Don’t mention it,” Trey said, looking back up at the monster. Up close, he struck Robin as faintly familiar, but he couldn’t place the guy right away and he didn’t have time to dwell on it. With Cyborg, Starfire and Beast Boy all gripping tentacles and pulling to assist Miss Martian and Raven’s powers, the creature was almost entirely out of the water. It had no arms or legs, just a huge, fanged mouth and a dozen tentacles. 

 

_ There--those  _ are _ gills! _ “ _ It can’t breathe out of the water! _ ” he reported psychically to the rest of the team. “ _ If we can damage its gills, it won’t be able to breathe even if it falls back into the water! Hit the gills! _ ” He charged up an explosive birdarang, flinging it as hard as he could. The creature roared in agony.

 

“ _ Got it, _ ” Superboy though. Sand was blasted into the air by the force of the half-Kryptonian’s leap as he jumped onto the sea monster and started pummelling it. The creature’s cries and struggling rapidly weakened as it struggled to breathe out of the water.

 

“ _ Can’t… hold it… for long… _ ” Raven said, her mental voice faint and strained.

 

“ _ Throw it at the beach!” _ Miss Martian ordered. They all hurled the creature onto the shore a ways down the beach from Robin and Trey, where it lay limp and still.

 

“ _ Good call, Robin, _ ” Superboy said, hopping down from the monster. “ _ This thing could’ve been the source of that signal--maybe it was being deployed from somewhere. _ ”

 

Robin and Trey stood up, dusting sand off of themselves. They turned at the sound of a loud bark--the dog was still standing several feet away, still growling unhappily.

 

“Ace!” Trey yelled in relief, running over to fall to his knees and wrap his arms around his dog’s neck. “Glad you’re okay, boy,” he murmured as the dog ecstatically licked his face.

 

“Can’t remember how you got here, but you remember your dog’s name? Glad to see your memory’s got its priorities!” Beast Boy said brightly.

 

“I hope that neither of you are injured,” Starfire said, floating over to the pair with a concerned expression.

 

“No, we’re fine,” Trey said, goggling at her “...What the hell are you guys?”

 

“We’re with the Justice League,” Superboy explained.

 

“You  _ are _ injured,” Raven said, pointing at Trey’s left shoulder, where a dark stain was seeping through a tear in his jacket.

 

“Aw, slag it,” Trey exclaimed, craning around to look at the wound. “This is the only jacket I’ve got! I think...”

 

“You must’ve gotten hit when you saved me,” Robin said, feeling guilty.  _ I should’ve been more alert. A  _ civilian _ shouldn’t have been hurt protecting  _ me. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Trey said, tugging at his jacket and making a face at the wound.

 

“Why don’t you come with us?” Miss Martian offered. “We can patch you up and try to find out who you are.”

 

“Thanks,” Trey said gratefully. “Justice League? So you guys are superheroes or something?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, the more Nightwing and Robin find out about Trey, the more complicated their lives get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas folks, now that A Better Cage is finished I’m gonna focus more on this! I can’t promise regular updates but this is now my primary DC-fic project :)

{ _ Connecticut _ }

{ _ July 8, 23:04 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

Robin kept an eye on Trey the whole flight to Bludhaven. Nightwing had a couple of bunkers that they could use to bring in and hide threatened civilians without compromising anything vital, and on request had texted the address of one to Robin, so they were taking Trey there directly. The guy seemed oblivious of being watched, though his dog kept glaring at Robin, growling under its breath. It only seemed to hate Robin--it was friendly enough to the rest of the team, happy to lick Starfire’s hand and exchange butt-sniffs with Beast Boy in dog form, but whenever Robin went too close it  _ snarled _ . He could only conclude that he’d crossed paths with Trey and his dog before, a suspicion strengthened by the way that Trey looked so damn  _ familiar _ , but Robin’s memory was, unusually, failing him. He’d never had this much trouble placing somebody before. 

 

Nightwing’s spare bunker was in a disused factory, supplies and equipment buried among the dead assembly lines and empty offices. A collapsed roof gave Miss Martian space to land the Bio-ship inside of an empty warehouse, from where Robin led them into the old factory floor where the main computer setup was hidden. Though the place looked dilapidated, Robin had already remotely accessed the security system to get them in without setting anything off and knew the place to be swarming with hidden sensors and cameras.

 

“Robin, where are the medical supplies?” Miss Martian asked as Robin pulled aside an access hatch to a hollowed-out machine, revealing the customized above-the-top-of-the-line computer hidden inside. 

 

“I’ll go get them--Raven, can you come help?” Robin asked, looking to the hooded girl. 

 

Raven raised an eyebrow but followed without saying anything until they were out of earshot of the others. “You’re suspicious of him,” she stated flatly as Robin led her to a production bin that had a medical kit hidden under a tarpaulin inside.

 

“I’m sure I’ve seen him before, and his dog definitely remembers me, but I can’t place him,” Robin explained. “I need a blood sample to DNA test--he might be in Batman’s systems. But I don’t think I can get near him without that dog snapping my hand off…”

 

“Why not tell the others if you’re suspicious?” Raven queried as he passed her the medical kit.

 

“I will, but Miss Martian hasn’t restored the psychic link and I don’t want to tip him off that I’m suspicious of him,” Robin said, stepping back.

 

Raven nodded silently and headed back to the still assembly line that the rest of the team were sitting on. Robin followed, returning to the computer terminal and logging in to start a search for “Trey Malone”, “Trae Malone” and every other spelling he could think of. He kept an eye on Trey out of the corner of his eye as Superboy helped the stranger take off his shirt and jacket without aggravating the open wound on his shoulder.

 

“Dude!” Beast Boy exclaimed as Trey’s shirt came off. “What war were  _ you  _ in?!”

 

Trey had a  _ lot _ of scars--Robin’s expert eye picked out wounds caused by knives, gunshots, broken bones and some odd wounds that looked like deep cigarette burns. The Team was staring in open shock, but Trey just looked confused. “Huh,” he said, poking at a relatively fresh-looking, still-pink slash over his right shoulder that went down almost to his collarbone. It was bleeding a little, having been reopened by the sea monster’s attack, though not as badly as the fresh cut over his left shoulder joint. “What war  _ was  _ I in?” The dog licked his arm and whined.

 

Robin tore his gaze away, looking back to the computer. Trey, or Trae, Malone wasn’t an uncommon name in the US--a broad search had already thrown up hundreds of results, and that was the US alone, going off the guy’s accent. Robin entered an age range to narrow the results, then started manually scanning photographs, deleting those disqualified by ethnicity or facial features too different from Trey’s. He started going through social media, removing several who’d recently posted shirtless selfies showing a lack of Trey’s distinctive scarring, one who was at that moment livestreaming a show at Disneyworld on facebook, and a couple more who were presently doing time for drug possession after a check of their prisons confirmed that they were still in custody. The deeper he dug, the more prospects were disqualified until he was left with… nothing.

 

“I’d better stop there,” said Raven, who had been using healing magic on Trey’s shoulder. “I couldn’t completely heal it, but I can’t overuse my power.” She wiped some blood off of Trey’s shoulder with a cotton pad.

 

“You did great!” Beast Boy cheered. 

 

“It’ll heal quicker thanks to you,” Miss Martian said encouragingly, picking up the bandages. “Starfire, can you pass me the medical tape?”

 

“Of course!” Starfire said chirpily, picking up the roll of white tape and presenting it with a flourish. “Do not fear, Trey--though we are not doctors, we are very experienced in the treatment of human injuries!”

 

“That’s… great?” Trey said, giving her a slightly bemused thumbs-up.

 

Robin expanded the search outside of the US--accents were easily faked, after all. But the name was far less common in other countries, and it took him far less time to investigate and discredit all possibilities.

 

So “Trey Malone” was a fake name. Whether the guy they’d brought back was lying or just confused depended on whether or not his amnesia was fake. Between the fake name and scars, he definitely cut a suspicious figure.

 

“Anything?” Superboy asked Robin, coming over with Cyborg to look at the computer.

 

“Looks like a whole lotta nothin’ to me,” Cyborg observed, looking at all the marked-out results on the screen.

 

“I haven’t found him yet,” Robin admitted. Raven drifted over to look, slipping the cotton pad that she’d used to wipe Trey’s shoulder to Robin surreptitiously. Bless her and her Batman-like suspicious streak. “Cyborg, can you take over, set up a search for anybody who might be Trey in the Missing Persons database?” he asked. “I want to try and find Nightwing’s crime lab--I might be able to run some tests on the bits of that sea monster we brought back.”

 

“Sure,” Cyborg said, taking Robin’s place in front of the computer and connecting it to his own systems.

 

“Wake me when you find something,” Raven said, settling into a meditation pose. Robin did a spot check on the rest of the team--Miss Martian and Starfire were both chatting to Trey as he pulled his shirt back on, hopefully trying to sense out his thoughts and feelings as well as being friendly; Beast Boy had turned into a dog again and was chatting to Trey’s dog; Superboy was watching Cyborg search through Missing Persons reports.

 

Robin knew full well that Nightwing’s crime lab was in an old office and headed straight for it with the cotton pad of Trey’s blood. His own glove computer could hook him up to Batman’s database to compare DNA with.

 

{ _ Bludhaven _ }

{ _ July 8, 23:59 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“Yo… Robin?”

 

“Hey, Beast Boy,” Robin said, looking up as Beast Boy, still shaped like a large, green dog, padded into the bio-lab. He turned off the monitor where his search on Trey’s DNA was ticking over and shifted his seat to face a bit of the sea monster in a petri dish. Beast Boy didn’t seem to notice, shifting back to mostly-humanoid form with a troubled expression. “Is something wrong?”

 

“Ace told me why he hates you,” Beast Boy sighed, folding his arms on an empty counter and leaning his head on them. “You’re a bad human who hurt his… I wanna say ‘master’ but it’s not a totally accurate word for how a dog feels about their favourite human, it’s more like halfway between ‘parent’ and ‘god’. Weird thing is, that favourite human isn’t Trey. I mean, Trey’s definitely his  _ pack _ , just not  _ the _ human to him, y’know?”

 

“Okay, I have to know: does shapeshifting into animals let you  _ talk _ to them, or is it a psychic translation thing, like Miss Martian does?” Robin asked curiously.

 

“Nah, neither, I just know about animal body language,” Beast Boy said casually. “The way he behaves towards you, Trey, the others… aggression signals, affection signals… Man, I  _ wish _ I could read his mind. Bet he’d be able to tell us something about who Trey is and where he comes from, huh?”

 

“You think Miss Martian  _ could _ read Ace’s mind?” Robin asked thoughtfully. “It’d save us a lot of searching…”

 

“Eh… even if she  _ would _ , I don’t think she’d get anything useful,” Beast Boy sighed. “Dogs don’t form memories the way we do. Anyway, a dog can’t meaningfully consent to a mind probe, and you  _ know _ how strict she is about that kinda thing when we’re not in combat.”

 

Robin nodded. “Has Cyborg found anything?” he asked.

 

“Nah… he wants to know if you have any ideas,” Beast Boy said, sitting up. “Like, Ace knows you, so maybe you know him?”

 

“He seems familiar, but I can’t place him,” Robin admitted. “But if I hurt some other human close to them, it must be somebody I’ve fought on a mission or back on Gotham. Trey might’ve been there too… I just wish I could remember,” he sighed in frustration. “He might’ve been on somebody’s crew and I’ve seen his face but not really  _ noticed _ him, but still, I usually have a better memory for faces, even if I only got a glimpse…”

 

“Hey, if anybody’ll figure it out, it’s you,” Beast Boy said, grinning as he sat up and poked Robin’s forehead with one finger. “After all, that’s the biggest brain on the Team in there. I bet you’ll sleuth up  _ something _ .”

 

“Thanks, Gar,” Robin said with a smile. 

 

“Gar? There you are,” Superboy said, stepping into the lab. “C’mon, M’gann’s gonna fly you, Kori, Raven and Vic home. It’s late here and Qurac’s seven hours ahead.”

 

“But we don’t know about Trey yet!” Beast Boy protested.

 

“Robin, are you up to keep investigating for a while longer?” Superboy asked. Robin nodded. “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on Trey while you do. I’ll zeta back myself later. Go on.”

 

“Fiiiiiiiine… see ya, Rob,” Gar grumbled, slouching out of the door. A minute wince crossed Superboy’s face.

 

“Nightwing gets off of his day job at two, I’ll call him in then to help,” Robin offered. “Batman, Spoiler and Black Bat are already busy on another investigation.”

 

Superboy nodded. “Did you get anything from Trey’s blood?” he asked. 

 

Robin had long stopped being surprised by how unexpectedly perceptive the half-Kryptonian could be--Superboy wasn’t a trained detective, but he’d been friends with Nightwing long enough to pick up a few things, and he really knew how to use his super senses to pick up information. He didn’t bother asking whether Superboy had seen Raven handing him the cotton pad or if he’d just smelled the blood. “Not sure,” Robin said, turning the computer monitor back on. There was a result. “Huh.  _ He’s _ not in my database, but there is a match to…”

 

“Robin?” Superboy asked in concern after several moments of silence. “You’ve gone white…”

 

“That can’t be right,” Robin muttered, shutting down the program and rebooting it. “No  _ way _ he’s…”

 

“Robin?” Superboy asked. “What is it? Did you find something?”

 

“I think it was a mistake,” Robin said, going back to the cotton pad. “If… if you get a chance, can you get another blood sample from him, or some hair? Ask if he’s willing to give some for me to do a DNA search, help me narrow down who he is. If he says no, try and sneak some anyway.”  _ He couldn’t be… but if he is, I want to be  _ sure.

 

“Okay,” Superboy said with a nod. “Comm me if you come up with anything or if you need anything, okay? Or, hell, just yell out, I’ll keep an ear out for you.”

 

“Sure, sure,” Robin murmured, starting to make a fresh sample of Trey’s DNA from the blood sample. He didn’t see the concerned look Superboy gave him as the older hero backed out of the room.

  
  


{ _ Bludhaven _ }

{ _ July 9, 01:54 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“You’d better finish those reports before you clock off to see that girl you’re texting,” Amy said threateningly as she walked past the desk where Dick was struggling with the Bludhaven Police Department’s antique computer system.

 

“It’s a guy, actually,” Dick said, longing for the laptop that Babs had built him for his 21st birthday.  _ I could file these reports faster writing them out by hand, even in triplicate! _

 

“The gay guys only like you for the puns, rookie,” Amy warned as she walked away.

 

"I think you're underselling my very fine ass," Dick called after her, checking his texts again as another one came through from Tim. His little brother--as good as, anyway, if not legally--was getting increasingly antsy about an amnesiac drifter that the team had picked up near the ruins of Mount Justice. The guy was either lying about his name or wasn’t on any databases, and Tim was sure that they’d crossed paths before, so he’d run some DNA tests and whatever he’d found had him frantically messaging Dick to tell him to come in as soon as possible. The kid sounded spooked, and Dick was dying to knock off of his day job and change into Nightwing so he could go see for himself.

 

By the time he  _ finally _ got out of work, drove home, showered and changed and headed out to the spare bunker, it was nearly empty. Conner was at the computer terminal, checking something. A stranger, presumably Trey, was stretched out on one of the assembly lines, having a nap, one arm flung over his eyes and the other dangling near the floor. The Great Dane that Tim had mentioned Trey having woke up, stared at Dick for a long moment with its nose twitching, before yawning and lying back down on the floor next to Trey’s dangling hand.

 

“Where’s everybody else?” Dick asked quietly as he crept silently over to Conner.

 

“M’gann took the others home,” Conner said, giving Dick a ‘ _ don’t start _ ’ look. Dick had been overjoyed for his friends when M’gann and Conner had gotten back  together during M’gann’s sabbatical from the Team, time she’d spent caring for Gar and the animals that Marie Logan had loved. The time seemed to have made her less aggressive than she’d become and much more strict with herself in how she used her psychic abilities. Conner’s faith in her had become strong enough that when Dick had tracked down a time-space distortion, hoping to find Wally and instead finding an unconscious girl with purple hair, literally grey skin and overwhelming psychic abilities, Conner had suggested sending Raven to live with M’gann to learn to control her power. They’d been joined six months later by Koriand’r, an alien refugee who had a great deal of emotion-based power and whose orange skin and iris-less, solid green eyes made it hard for her to blend in among humans, just like Gar and Raven. That had been around the time that Dick had started joking about Conner and M’gann adopting more kids than Batman. He figured it was Conner’s own parentless life that made him somewhat touchy about the subject, but from Dick’s perspective as an adopted kid himself, the pair of them were parenting the _ hell _ out of their own little subset of the Team, and doing a pretty good job of it. It certainly hadn’t stopped them taking in Victor after he’d become Cyborg--he’d desperately needed somewhere to go as, aside from his cybernetic enhancements making him unwilling to go out in public much, his relationship with his father had gotten so bad that he refused to live at home anymore.

 

The accident and enhancements had only been five months ago. Dick hoped that Victor would learn to find some peace with his new state of being and forgive his father for it. After all, they were both still alive.

 

“Everyone?” Dick asked, looking around. 

 

“When we couldn’t find a thing anywhere on the computers, Robin started running some DNA tests,” Conner said, nodding in the direction of Dick’s crime lab. “I stayed to keep an eye on this guy while he did that.” 

 

Dick chanced another look at Trey, who was still completely sacked out, breathing deep and steady. His head was pillowed on his jacket, and on the exposed stretches of his arms Dick could see a few defensive wounds, some jagged scars from when bones had been broken badly enough to force through the skin, and the knuckle calluses of an extremely experienced fighter. “He’s messaged me a few times to say he found something, but I don’t know what,” Dick said quietly. “Do you know anything?”

 

Conner shook his head. “Haven’t seen him for a couple hours,” he said, frowning. “I’ve been keeping an ear out for him, but he’s just… working. The one time I looked in, he looked like he’d found something that startled him, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.”

 

Dick nodded, and headed through to his crime lab. Tim was staring at something on a monitor that he’d connected his glove computer to, looking pale and nervous. “I’ve re-tested his DNA eight times, blood and hair,” Tim said as Dick stepped into the room, “and it’s the same result every time. From  _ our _ DNA files, by the way. I wanted to run it by you before I told anybody...”

 

“In our database? He’s definitely somebody we’ve come up against before, then?” Dick said uneasily as he crossed the room. “Or related to somebody?”

 

“Oh, he’s related to somebody,” Tim said, stepping aside and gesturing to the screen, which was displaying a paternity match.

 

Bruce Wayne.

 

“I thought he looked familiar when I saw him,” Tim said quietly. “His dog hated me on sight, so I thought maybe he was a criminal we’d busted in Gotham at some point, maybe working for a face. I did a DNA check and…”

 

Dick stared blankly at the screen. There was no point in asking for another re-test--he knew how thorough Tim was.

 

Bruce’s son. Bruce’s  _ biological _ son.

 

He felt an entirely unwarranted pang of dislike for the young man sleeping on the factory floor and shoved it down. He thought he’d outgrown the only-child jealousy over sharing Bruce’s attention after a while with the Team--it hadn’t bothered him at all to adopt Jason, who as far as he was concerned was still his little brother whom he loved dearly no matter  _ what _ he was doing (or killing) now. He loved Tim like a brother too, and they  _ had _ as good adopted the kid, what with how often he stayed at the Manor while his parents were abroad, which was most of the time. Faking up a positive paternity test for Bruce so they could get custody of Cassandra quickly and with only half as much fake paperwork to cover her mystery background had been downright  _ fun _ , and it was impossible not to love his silent but affectionate sister. Still, more than a decade of everybody from paparazzos to classmates to drunk party guests insinuating that Bruce had to have an illegitimate kid or two out there, and that as soon as one surfaced Dick would be kicked to the curb, was giving him an unaccustomed pang of nerves over the prospect of telling Bruce about Trey. Watching the tabloids  _ explode _ over Cassandra had been pretty funny sometimes, but more than a few had gone into some unpleasant speculation about Dick’s place in the family as a result. One had even accused him, after he’d escorted Cassandra to her first Wayne Gala, of attempting to  _ seduce _ “the real Wayne child” to “stay in the family”, which was wrong on so many levels that he couldn’t even  _ begin  _ to process it.

 

But it had all been  _ pretend _ , a show to cover up Cassandra’s murky past. Even if Trey was for real, in his head Dick knew it shouldn’t change anything. Dick  _ knew _ that Bruce would never abandon him, that they were father and son even if they used those terms between themselves about as often as Bruce and Alfred did, that Bruce had always insisted that if it  _ did _ turn out that he had a real biological child that it wouldn’t change anything between them, legally or otherwise. Dick had loved having Jason as a little brother, he loved having Tim as a little brother, he loved having Cassandra as a little sister--what was wrong with adding another brother to the family?

 

Still… Bruce’s  _ biological _ son. His  _ real _ biological child.

 

There was no way this wasn’t going to be complicated.

 

“Do you know how old he is?” Dick asked levelly.

 

“He thinks twenty,” Tim said, giving Dick a nervous look. “DNA puts him in that range.”

 

Dick nodded, trying to think back over what he knew of Bruce’s personal history. Trey was about Dick’s age. Allowing a broad window for twenty, and reeling back further to the window of conception, put them straight in the middle of the years that Bruce had spent travelling outside of Gotham, years that Bruce always refused to talk about in detail and thus Dick only knew patchy bits about, usually from stories that started like “once, when I was in Cairo as part of a travelling magician’s act…”

 

“Okay,” Dick said after letting his wheels spin for a bit. “I’m gonna call Bruce. He needs to know, and he’s got a better shot than any of us at figuring out who Trey is. He’ll probably have an idea of who Trey’s mother could be, at least. We can work from there.”

 

Tim nodded, then tried to suppress a face-cracking yawn. “I’m not tired,” he said defensively when Dick chuckled.

 

“It’s past two am, Tim,” Dick pointed out. “I’ve got some motorbikes hidden in the crates in the warehouse next door. Go home and sleep. I’ll handle this.”

 

Tim grumbled but stood up, heading for the factory floor. “Watch out for him,” he said, looking back as he stopped in the doorway. “I don’t know if you read the report, but we got attacked by something on the beach near Mount Justice. It was some kind of sea monster, this  _ huge _ thing, and… you didn’t see how he reacted. He wasn’t afraid, he was… calculating. He was ready to fight that thing himself if we hadn’t been there. He’s  _ dangerous _ .”

  
Dick nodded, thinking of the scars on Trey’s arms. Oh, yeah. This was gonna be  _ complicated _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not that I’m not DELIGHTED that my favourite Batgirl is gonna be in YJ season 3 as Spoiler, and I know that Batfam characters tend to take over properties that they’re in, but I still demand more love and respect from DC as a company for my beloved daughter Cassandra Cain, and until she gets it I guess i’m going to have to give her all the love myself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The more Trey finds out about himself, the more complicated things get.

{ _ Gotham _ }

{ _ July 9, 04:08 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

A quiet night, sir,” Alfred commented as Bruce stepped out of the Batmobile at the shockingly early hour of four am. “You may yet achieve more than two hours of sleep a night.”

 

“A quiet night in Gotham just means the calm before the storm, Alfred,” Bruce grouched, pulling back his cowl and heading for the main computer. Nightwing had pinged him about an hour and a half back, asking Bruce to call when he finished patrol, stating that it wasn’t urgent but it was important. With the unusual quiet in Gotham, curiosity had urged Bruce back to the Cave to call his oldest son, leaving Black Bat and Spoiler to handle the rest of the patrol. Stephanie was much less experienced than Cassandra, but they were a good team, and it wasn’t as if they had school in the morning.

 

He started accessing the Team’s reports as he dialled Dick’s number, wondering how Tim and Barbara’s missions had gone. Sometimes he wondered how he’d gone from grudgingly allowing one Robin into his life to keeping track of five young heroes--six, if you counted Jason. Even if he was no longer a hero, he was still Bruce’s responsibility.

 

Dick picked up the instant Bruce called. “ _ Early night, Bruce _ ?” he gasped in mock shock.

 

“Save the sass, Alfred’s better at it,” Bruce said. “What happened?”

 

Dick sighed heavily. “ _ Okay. I’m sending you the DNA test results of an amnesiac drifter calling himself Trey Malone that Robin’s team picked up earlier. The name’s probably fake, but since we couldn’t ID him and couldn’t find any Missing or Wanted Persons matching his description, Robin did a DNA test and got a match. _ ”

 

“From our database?” Bruce said, looking at the two reports from the team that Tim had been on. The first described a successful bust of an Intergang group smuggling weapons, with nine arrests and a reasonable quantity of seized goods, and the second was of a sea monster attack near the remains of Mount Justice, including the pickup of a stranger with no ID who’d been mildly injured in the attack. An email arrived with the DNA results and Bruce opened them up scanning down the page. Trey Malone, 19-21, male… Bruce found his gaze drawn past the phenotype information to the phrase  _ PATERNITY MATCH--Bruce Wayne. _

 

“Goodness,” Alfred gasped quietly behind him. “...Well, I suppose belated congratulations are in order, sir.”

 

“ _ Tim re-ran the tests eight times, and this is a match to  _ our _ database, not any public ones, _ ” Dick said. “ _ Do you know who he is, Bruce? _ ”

 

Bruce looked back to the age estimate, memory scrolling back as he tried to figure out an approximate year, a place and, most crucially, a person. Almost immediately, he hit a roadblock. Going by the test’s age estimate, almost the entire period where Trey could have been conceived overlapped with Bruce’s time training with the League of Shadows, and that time had been  _ entirely _ dedicated to training.  _ Something _ had been growing between him and Talia, but it hadn’t been realized until years later… and Trey was much too old to be the child that he and Talia had lost, more than a decade ago, the catalyst for losing forever any chance of their relationship working out. 

 

Trey had to be younger--or possibly older. Bruce had had more than his share of teenage relationships, though he couldn’t think of anybody he’d slept with who could have gotten pregnant without it getting back to him, possibly via an angry father who could afford a whole security detail with shotguns. But that wasn’t the most pressing problem.

 

The problem was that he had a son who’d made it to adulthood without Bruce knowing a thing about him.

 

Trey  _ Malone _ , he’d said. Bruce hadn’t ever slept with anybody as Matches Malone, and even if he had, he hadn’t even  _ started _ using that identity until about fourteen years ago. It was an identity he used for getting information at seedy poker games and dingy bars, not romancing. Nevertheless, Bruce Wayne did not believe in coincidence. There had to be some kind of connection.

 

“Sir?” Alfred said, snapping his fingers a few times in front of Bruce’s face.

 

“Sorry, Alfred, didn’t hear you,” Bruce said, pulling himself out of his thoughts. 

 

“It was Master Dick who spoke, not I,” Alfred said, though there wasn’t as much rebuke to it as there might usually be. “What do you propose that we do about the young man?”

 

“Tell him the DNA results and bring him to Gotham,” Bruce decided. “But keep the night job out of it for now. Until we figure out exactly who he is and where he came from, it’s better that we don’t tell him too much. Let’s try and keep press involvement minimal, too--they’re only just starting to lose interest in Cass, and we don’t need another explosion like that yet. We’ll probably have to go for an official DNA test at some point, and then it’ll only be a matter of time before somebody tips off a journalist, but until we know who he is and where he came from…”

 

“ _ Don’t know who his mom is, huh? Oh, Brucie, _ ” Dick said. He was going for a jokey tone, but the attempt was unusually weak. 

 

“Not until we get a more accurate estimate of his age,” Bruce hedged. He’d probably have to compare notes with Alfred, but he couldn’t think of anybody he’d slept with who could have kept a pregnancy secret--or rather, he could, but all of them would show up on his DNA databases. He’d had an uncomfortable moment when he thought of his times training in the League--there were so many different exercises undertaken in altered states of mind, so many drugs designed to alter or obscure memories… but Talia was in his DNA database. If she was Trey’s mother, the system would have matched her as surely as it had matched him. 

 

“Will you be fetching Master Trey yourself?” Alfred asked.

 

Bruce shook his head. “If he really does have amnesia, this could be a lot for him to take in,” he said. “It might be easier on him to meet his brother before me.”  _ You’re still my son, Dick. So’s Jason, no matter where he is and what he’s doing now. This boy doesn’t change that. _

 

“ _ Sure, I can bring him, but… we need to be careful of this guy, Bruce, _ ” Dick said uneasily. “ _ According to Superboy, Miss Martian offered to do a mind probe to find his missing memories and he refused, saying it sounded too frightening. You know how she is about non-combat mind probes these days--she didn’t push it. But the upshot is that we don’t know if the amnesia’s real, and Superboy added that it was kind of funny that the guy’s scared of a mind probe when he wasn’t scared of a giant sea monster attacking from the ocean. Robin says that he responded like a fighter, and that when they were patching up a minor wound he got, he was covered in scars. He’s walked away from a _ lot  _ of fights. Until we know more about him… _ ”

 

“Understood,” Bruce said, filing away the suspicions. There was a lot of inherent weirdness in a son that he was sure he couldn’t have fathered turning up on League property; this could very easily be a trap designed by somebody who knew that Bruce wouldn’t hesitate to take Trey in.

 

His thoughts went back to Ra’s Al Ghul. If anybody would try to strike at Batman by attacking him as Bruce Wayne, it would be the undying leader of the League of Assassins.

 

He  _ wouldn’t _ hesitate to take Trey in, but it never hurt to be cautious.

 

“ _ There’s one more thing you should know, _ ” Dick added.

 

“What’s that?”

 

_ He’s got a dog. A great dane. _ ”

 

“...I suppose I shall see to a supply of dog food as soon as I’ve made up a room,” Alfred said dryly. “A  _ lot _ of dog food.”

  
  


{ _ Gotham _ }

{ _ July 9, 04:16 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

When the yell echoed out from the factory floor, Dick was on his feet and running with his escrima in hand before he’d even consciously registered the sound. 

 

Conner was standing, but he wasn’t glaring at any attacking enemies, just staring in concern at Trey. The guy was sitting upright, a hand pressed over his eyes, breathing heavy and erratic. The dog had his head pressed to Trey’s legs where he’d swung them over the edge of the conveyer belt and was staring up at his master, whining until Trey pet him.

 

“I’m okay, Ace,” Trey said, sounding anything but. “Just a nightmare.”

 

A nightmare that woke him up screaming. Dick knew all about  _ those _ . There was a good chance that Trey’s nightmare was about a memory, though Dick deemed this an inappropriate time to ask. Instead, he waited until Trey’s breathing calmed, then stepped forwards, deliberately making sound. Not a  _ lot _ of sound, nothing that a normal person would probably pay attention to, but just enough that anybody with any training would immediately notice his presence. 

 

Trey whipped around to stare at Dick with wide eyes and--no  _ wonder _ Tim had thought the guy looked familiar. Dick hadn’t gotten a full look at Trey’s face before, but from the nose upwards, the guy  _ was _ Bruce. His eyes were even the exact same ice-blue. 

 

“Trey, right?” Dick asked carefully. “Are you okay?” Trey was staring at Dick in absolute shock.  _ Does he recognize Nightwing? Does he have reason to be afraid of me? Christ, I’m sure I’d  _ remember _ if I’d ever seen  _ this  _ guy before… _

 

“Trey?” Conner asked. 

 

Trey shuddered, shaking his head, then wiped a hand over his eyes. “Sorry, brain’s not awake yet,” he muttered. “I’m okay. Uh…” he squinted at Dick. “...Who’re you? You weren’t one of the ones who found me…”

 

“I’m Nightwing,” Dick said, part of him hoping Trey’s brain would  _ stay  _ offline. Dick was going to have to pick the guy up later as Officer Grayson, and he knew from experience that if anybody was going to catch out a secret identity, it was somebody who met both of your identities for the first time on the same day. People needed time to get to know one side before they met the other, because you always notice the most about a person when you first meet them. He’d spent  _ months _ establishing himself in Bludhaven as Nightwing before actually moving there to minimize the chances of anybody in the BPD making a connection, though he suspected that he could wear a domino mask and carry some escrima into work one day without some of the “detectives” he worked with noticing anything unusual. 

 

The point was that, once people had an  _ idea _ of who you were established in their minds, they’d excuse a lot of oddness that didn’t fit that idea because ignoring anything that doesn’t fit your idea is easier than changing it. Unlearning that was what separated the good detectives from the wastes who’d just wind up trying to wrap up a case as quickly as possible, never mind if they found the truth or not. But he wasn’t going to have time to really establish  _ Nightwing _ to this guy before introducing Officer Grayson. If Trey had inherited more than just Bruce’s eyes, nose and cheekbones, any chance of keeping the night job a secret would be blown as soon as he laid eyes on Officer Grayson… and that was if this wasn’t all some kind of setup from the start.

 

“Okay… hi, Nightwing,” Trey said, holding out his hand. “I’m Trey Malone, I think, and this is Ace.” The dog barked loudly, thumping his tail and trying to lick Dick’s hand when he reached out to shake Trey’s. Whatever problem the dog had with Robin apparently didn’t extend to Nightwing.

 

“Okay, Trey, I understand you have amnesia?” Dick said. Trey nodded, rubbing his head with a sheepish expression. “Well, we did some blood tests--you did kinda bleed on my bunker, which makes a nice change from  _ me _ bleeding all over my bunker. We couldn’t find you in any missing persons databases, but we did get a match on your DNA.”

 

“What?! You did?!” Trey gasped, staring at Dick in surprise. “How… I mean, who? You have my DNA on file?! Who am I?”

 

“We didn’t find  _ your _ DNA,” Dick said, a little surprised by the intensity of Trey’s shock.  _ He’s that surprised that we found him? He doesn’t seem excited, just… shocked. Did he think that a DNA search wouldn’t turn up a result… or shouldn’t? _ “We got a paternity match for a man we once investigated,” he lied. If anybody ever needed to know why Batman had Bruce Wayne’s DNA on file, that was the stock reason; it would probably be more surprising if Batman had  _ never _ investigated one of the richest men in the world who owned a sizeable portion of business and pretty much all charitable institutions in Gotham. “He was innocent, don’t worry. You’re not related to a criminal. Your father, according to the DNA tests, is Bruce Wayne.”

 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Conner’s jaw drop, but it was Trey’s reaction that was  _ really _ fascinating. The guy went white as a sheet and actually took a step backwards as he gaped at Dick. 

 

“Wh…  _ what _ ,” Trey croaked. “What?”

 

“You know who he is?” Dick asked carefully.

 

“He’s… he’s...  isn’t he is that--that mega,  _ incredibly _ rich, famous guy?” Trey stammered. “I mean… if I’m some super rich dude’s kid, why do I look like I fought a blender and barely escaped?” He gestured to his exposed forearms. 

 

“We don’t know,” Dick admitted. “He also, as far as we can tell, doesn’t know about you--there’s no public or legal record of you, and he was pretty surprised when I contacted him to tell him that we picked you up. He wants to meet you, though. He has an adopted son who’s a police officer here in Bludhaven who can arrange to pick you up and bring you to Gotham if you’re up for it.”

 

Trey looked dazed for a long moment, long enough for Ace to rear up on his hind legs and lick his cheek. “Sure,” Trey said, petting Ace vaguely. “I mean… where else am I gonna go?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a Christmas double-feature. Merry Crimbo ficbomb! I promise that this entire fic isn’t solely batfam members brooding on their complicated family situations, but, well… they are who they are, that’s what they do.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick provides his new brother with the tips and tricks to living in Wayne Manor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, folks! I had a good time having my parents over to visit--I hope you all had a good new year too and that 2018’s being good to you so far. Have Ace being a good, good dog and Dick being a good, good big brother.

{ _ Bludhaven _ }

{ _ July 9, 04:42 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

Dick ran his hands through his hair for perhaps the eightieth time since he’d left to ‘speak to Officer Grayson’. He’d showered, changed, picked a distinct but not overwhelming cologne, and spent more time restyling his hair and picking his clothes than he did for most dates. He needed to minimize the visual similarities between Dick Grayson and Nightwing, but he also felt more nervous than he’d expected to about properly meeting his new brother. The guy was about his age, rather than being a kid brother like Jason and Tim when they’d first met or even just a few years younger like Cassandra, and that had Dick a little off-balance. Plus, there were all the oddities--Trey’s scars, Tim’s report of his behaviour on the beach, his extreme shock at Dick revealing that Bruce Wayne was his father. The reason Trey had given, surprise at being related to somebody wealthy and famous, wasn’t implausible, but seemed inadequate for the strength of Trey’s reaction. It wasn’t overplayed fake surprise, but genuine shock. The thought struck Dick that perhaps Trey  _ was _ a trap and just didn’t know it--his amnesia might be genuine, obscuring his true intentions even from himself. He might have been given false information about himself to work from, hence his surprise at what he thought he knew being contradicted. The one thing that seemed certain was that somebody, most likely Trey’s mother but possibly somebody else, had been keeping him secret from Bruce--but why?

 

Dick mulled the idea over as he drove to the place where he’d agreed with Conner to meet. They were in a neighbourhood that was pretty bad even by Bludhaven’s standards, but even if Conner and Trey weren’t both intimidatingly bulky guys, Dick figured the sight of Ace would give the most desperate mugger pause.

 

He rolled down his window as he approached the corner where the trio were waiting, peering uncertainly at the them as if trying to decide if they were who he was looking for or not. “Excuse me,” he called, “are you… Trey…?”

 

“Officer Grayson?” Conner said. “Nightwing told us about you.” He sounded painfully awkward; he’d never been much good at compartmentalizing between “superhero” and “secret identity”, probably a side-effect of his superhero life being much more his real life than his secret identity was. Dick wasn’t sure that Conner had spent much time  _ having  _ a secret identity since graduating from college, aside from keeping up with some friends on Facebook. The ease with which Dick switched between the two halves of his life always seemed to disquiet the half-Kryptonian. 

 

“Nightwing told me about you, too,” Dick said, leaning out a little more to look at Trey. “Damn,” he commented, “you really  _ look _ like Bruce.” Trey jerked, looking startled. “Dick Grayson,” Dick said, holding his hand out to Trey.

 

“Trey Malone,” Trey said, shaking Dick’s hand. “And this is Ace,” he added, gesturing to the dog.

 

“Hey, Ace, nice to meet you, too,” Dick said, letting Ace sniff his hand before scratching the dog’s ears. “Is he okay to ride in a car?”

 

“I think so. I mean… he was fine in the alien spaceship or whatever we got picked up in earlier,” Trey said, looking in the back of the car. “Is it okay to let him onto the back seat?”

 

“Sure,” Dick said, reaching back to move a box of case files onto the floor and then unlocking the car doors. As soon as Trey opened the back door, Ace hopped in, stretching himself contentedly across the back seat. He looked comfortable enough with the vehicle, even yawning and settling down for a nap.

 

“If you have any questions about where we found him or what happened, get in touch with Nightwing,” Conner said, glancing at Dick. “Robin’ll keep an eye out for you in Gotham, Trey.”

 

“Okay. Thanks,” Trey said, nodding at Conner. “For everything. Thank the rest of your team for me, too.”

 

“Will do,” Conner said, patting Trey on the back and nodding briefly to Dick before stepping back to let Trey get into the front seat next to Dick. The half-Kryptonian stood and watched as Dick pulled away, heading for the road to Gotham just as dawn was breaking.

 

“You know,” Trey said, craning around to watch until Conner was out of sight, “I don’t think that guy’s human. I mean, I don’t think  _ any _ of them were human.”

 

“Probably not,” Dick said vaguely. “I’m not sure any of those capes-and-tights types are. Are you okay? Nightwing said something about a sea monster…”

 

“I’m fine, they patched me up,” Trey said, tapping a bloodstained tear in the shoulder of his jacket. “Do you know that Nightwing guy well?”

 

_ Take that as an entirely innocent enquiry, _ Dick reminded himself,  _ even if it isn’t.  _ “I’m not sure anybody does,” he said with a shrug, “but most cops around here have met him a couple of times. I’ve picked up enough weird cases to meet him a few more times than most. I don’t know if he’s human or not, before you ask.”

 

“That’s kinda freaky,” Trey observed. “...Does that just seem kinda freaky because I can’t remember anything before about six hours ago, or is that really freaky?”

 

“It’s kinda freaky,” Dick allowed with a chuckle. He glanced back to check that Ace was behaving in the back seat as he shifted gears to speed up on the freeway, but the dog was dozing calmly across the seat. “So… amnesia, huh?”

 

Trey nodded. “First thing in my mind is waking up on that beach with Ace,” he sighed, propping his elbow up on the window and leaning his forehead against his hand. “Then a bunch of superheroes found me, then a sea monster attacked, then they told me  _ Bruce Wayne’s _ my dad… I have no idea which part’s the weirdest.”

 

“Can’t blame you for being freaked out,” Dick said sympathetically. “I don’t think I’d know what to make of it all, either. I  _ don’t _ really know what to make of it. I mean, it’s not the first time we’ve found out about a kid of Bruce’s that he didn’t know about--if you remember that he’s famously rich, you probably remember what  _ else _ he’s famous for. But he’s still kicking himself for not knowing about you until now.”

 

“So… you really don’t know anything about me?” Trey asked hopelessly.

 

“Sorry,” Dick sighed, “but I promise you, we’re going to find out where you’re from and what happened to you. Until then, you’ve got a home and a family, at least. Whatever’s happened, whatever’s  _ going _ to happen, you don’t have to deal with it alone.”

 

“...Thanks,” Trey said quietly, looking away out of the window for a moment before looking back to Dick. “So… you’re my adopted brother, huh?”

 

“Yep,” Dick said, smiling comfortingly at Trey. “I live in Bludhaven these days, but I can take some time off and come back to Gotham for a bit if you want a guy your own age around. I love Bruce, Cass and Alfred, but the Manor’s a hell of a big, intimidating house.”

 

“Alfred?” Trey asked. “Who’s he?”

 

“Officially, family butler--unofficially, family,” Dick said with a chuckle. “He’s the  _ most _ English guy you will ever meet. He raised Bruce after his parents were murdered, and helped raise me when Bruce took me in. The earthly god of cooking, organization and knowing what everybody everywhere is doing at all times. Cass is also around--she’s our sister, and your half-sister, I guess. She’s seventeen, we think. She’s only been living with us about five months, since her mother died. She’s got language issues that, um… well, I don’t think her childhood’s been great to her so far, but we’re learning sign language with her, give her a way to communicate. She’s pretty affectionate, and she will  _ absolutely _ hug you if you let her, though. And if you ever come across her while she’s dancing, don’t make a sound, just  _ watch _ , she’s  _ amazing _ .”

 

“...Okay then,” Trey said with a slight smile. It was the first time he’d looked anything other than lost, sad or shocked. “...What’s he like? Bruce? For real, I mean. I know the kind of stories you hear about him, but you must know better than the tabloids what he’s actually like as a person.”

 

Dick nodded. “Bruce is… he’s great, but I’ll warn you now, awkward as shit. Like I said, Alfred mostly raised Bruce, and I love Alfred, but he’s not exactly emotionally open and he passed that on to Bruce. Even if they can be weird about showing it, though, both of them care a  _ lot _ . Just… with Bruce especially, you might have to just take it on faith that he  _ is _ trying. He works a lot--as well as running Wayne Enterprises, he runs the Wayne Foundation charities and he takes those  _ very _ seriously. At the end of the day, he just wants to help people. Y’know, I think I will take some time off to hang around. I’m a master at the art of Bruce Whispering, I’ll show you the ropes.”

 

“...Thanks?” Trey said, smiling a little again. “He can’t be that bad at it. I mean, he raised you, and you’re a pretty nice guy.”

 

“I am indeed very pretty and very nice,” Dick agreed with a smirk, finally making Trey laugh. Dick sobered a little when he continued, “other things you should know… there’s two things Bruce absolutely will not talk about, or at least won’t answer questions about. One’s his parents, and the other is Jason.”

 

“Who’s Jason?” Trey asked, a guarded expression returning to his face. Dick felt bad about having to puncture the laughs, but they were getting into Gotham and he needed to forewarn Trey about what subjects were, essentially, the West Wing of Wayne Manor.

 

“I’m telling you now to pre-empt you asking Bruce that question at some point… Jason was my little brother,” Dick said solemnly.  _ Still is, _ he thought stubbornly. “Bruce adopted him when he was twelve. It’s… really a longer story than I can get into just now, but he lived on the streets for a long time before Bruce took him in, and sometimes he’d sneak out to go roam his old haunts. One night, he snuck out and… didn’t come back. The police found his body a few days later. He was fifteen.”

 

That had been one of the worst parts. Sitting in the Cave with Jason’s body, realizing that a plausible explanation for his death meant they’d have to ditch his body somewhere for the police to find, drop it in the icy Gotham River so the water and temperature would mess with the wounds and time of death. Dick hadn’t been able to handle it; Bruce had had to knock him out to take Jason’s body. He wondered how  _ Bruce _ had handled it, how it had felt to let Jason go into the water and fly back alone, but Bruce had been closed off when he came back and hadn’t come  _ close _ to opening up again for months, not until after Tim had gently but insistently made his way into their lives. He wondered if Jason knew about any of that now, if it mattered to him what they’d done with his body. 

 

“Shit… I’m sorry,” Trey said quietly. “Don’t ask about the dead people. Got it.”

 

“Bruce’ll sometimes come out with stories unprompted, but he’ll shut down if you ask any direct questions,” Dick explained. “I don’t mind talking about Jason if you ever come across anything you want to ask about, though… a lot of his stuff’s still around the Manor in places, especially the books. He was always leaving notes in them.” He smiled faintly in nostalgia, even though it somehow hurt even  _ more _ now that he knew that Jason was back than it had when he was dead. It hurt more knowing how angry and bitter Jason was now compared to the bright-eyed little brother that Dick had known.

 

Trey nodded, looking out of the car window as they drove over the Robert Kane Memorial Bridge. The dark, dense bulk of Gotham was falling away behind them while ahead of them were strewn the larger, more lavish mansions of Gotham’s wealthiest. The contrast was stark. Trey fell quiet, watching them drive past larger and larger buildings that grew more and more distant from the road, increasingly hidden behind their own gardens, walls and gates. Wayne Manor itself was entirely invisible from outside of the grounds, the entrance gates half-hidden among the forest that was carefully tended around the estate’s edges. 

Dick was relieved to note that the paparazzi vultures who’d been hovering around the gates of Wayne Manor trying to get an exclusive picture of the new Wayne Heiress seemed to have drifted off after her first public appearance last month. They’d practically camped there for Dick’s first month at the Manor--Jason’s, too.  _ Wonder how long they’ll hang around when word of Trey gets out _ ? he wondered, glancing at Trey out of the corner of his eye. Trey was staring at the gates of the Manor with a faintly sad look on his face, rubbing his shoulder injury. It would only take one hack with a camera to notice a resemblance...

 

But today, there was nobody but Alfred’s voice on the intercom. “ _ May I help you? _ ”

 

“Hey, Alfie, it’s me,” Dick said.

 

“ _ Ah, Master Dick. Bringing Master Trey, I presume _ ?”

 

“Sure am,” Dick said, leaning back into his car as the gates swung open. 

 

Ace sat upright, wagging his tail and barking happily as they drove through the gates and into the trees. Trey leaned back to scratch the dog’s ears. “Almost there, boy,” he murmured, glancing at Dick. “ _ Master _ Trey?” he asked.

 

“Suck it up, he absolutely will not stop doing it,” Dick advised wryly. “Took me  _ days _ just to bargain him down from ‘Master Richard’ and I’ve never gotten him to shift since.”

 

Trey opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything, his gaze distracted by the sight of Wayne Manor appearing through the trees.

 

Dick wondered what Trey was thinking. Was he excited by the sight of the tremendous residence? Amazed? Intimidated?  _ I was a bit of all three, _ Dick recalled. His first glimpse of the Manor had been characterized by awe--it was so big and old that he’d thought it was a castle from a fairytale, the amazement pushing everything out of his head for a few magical seconds, but the closer he’d gotten, the more frightened he’d been by the concept of  _ living _ there. Aside from some confused notions about castles being full of frightening things like ghosts and dungeons (both of which Wayne Manor  _ did _ have, in its own fashion), the house was just  _ too big. _ He’d lived most of his life sleeping in a trailer or train compartment with his parents, surrounded at all times by dozens of people and animals. Living in such a huge house with only two other people around (two very quiet, non-tactile people at that) had been almost painful at first. 

 

When he looked back at Trey, though, the guy didn’t look excited or scared, just… kind of sad. 

 

Dick pulled the car around the side of the building and into the garage where the most-used cars were kept. Trey’s gaze turned a little covetous as he looked over the Mercedes, the Lamborghini, and the Bentley.

 

“You like cars, Trey?” Dick asked in amusement as he turned the car off and unbuckled his seatbelt. 

 

“Apparently,” Trey said with a smirk. The smirk vanished and he went stiff as a board when the door to the house opened and Bruce stepped into the garage. “Is… that him?” Trey asked quietly. 

 

“Yep,” Dick said, patting Trey’s shoulder. “Just remember, he’s more afraid of you than you are of him. C’mon.”

 

Dick unlocked the doors and stepped out of the car. “Morning, Bruce,” he said, walking around the front of the car. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you awake this early in my  _ life _ !”  _ More like he never went to bed,  _ he admitted to himself.  _ I could sure do with some sleep soon myself... _

 

“Good morning, Dick,” Bruce said, looking from Dick to Trey. “Thanks for doing this. And you must be Trey,” he added as the young man in question stepped out of the car. 

 

“Um, yeah,” Trey said, closing his door and reaching for the back door. “And this is--WHOA!” As soon as he opened the back door of the car, Ace burst out, barrelling towards Bruce. Dick saw his mentor brace for impact, but Ace didn’t knock him down. The huge Great Dane just bounced in a circle around Bruce, barking happily, before squeezing against Bruce’s side and nuzzling against his hand, tail wagging fit to bust.

 

“...Hello there?” Bruce said, gingerly patting the dog, which caused another booming, joyful bark.

“I’m just spitballing here,” Trey said, giving a weak laugh, “but I think Ace likes you.”

 

“Didn’t know you were so beloved by animals,” Dick snickered, leaning back against the hood of his car with a grin. 

 

Bruce just scratched the dog’s ears with a bemused expression as he looked up at Trey. “It’s good to finally meet you, Trey,” he said seriously. “I’m sorry that it’s taken so long.” He held out his hand to Trey. 

 

“Nice to meet you too,” Trey said awkwardly, shaking the proffered hand. “I mean, it’s not your fault if you just… didn’t know I existed. I wonder why mom never said anything…” He looked down, folding his arms as his expression went sad again. “I wish I could remember her,” he said quietly.

 

“We’ll do everything we can to help you get your memory back,” Bruce assured him. “I know a doctor you can talk to--she’s very good and very discreet. She won’t tip off the press about you. They were a nightmare when I adopted Dick and Jason, and they’ve been hounding poor Cassandra… they’ll be twice as bad when they get wind of you. I don’t want you to have to deal with them until you’re ready.”

 

“I dunno, maybe we should let ‘em loose and see what they find,” Trey said with a smirk.

 

Dick laughed. “You’d need Bruce’s yacht to get through all the bullshit and speculation before they found anything useful,” he chuckled.

 

“You  _ seriously _ have a yacht?” Trey asked, gaping.

 

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Bruce said with a little smile. “How about a tour of the house first?” He headed back towards the door into the house. Ace followed as if glued to Bruce’s side.

 

“Man, that dog  _ loves _ Bruce,” Dick marvelled. “Maybe he smells good or something?” He caught himself before he made a comment on the dog’s snap judgements of people--the only other person that Ace had really reacted strongly to was Robin, and Officer Grayson probably shouldn’t know anything about that.

 

“Even my dog has abandoned me,” Trey sighed dramatically as they followed Bruce and Ace into the house.

 

Alfred was waiting for them just inside. “Welcome home, Master Dick,” he said warmly, “and welcome to Wayne Manor, Master Trey. I am the butler, Alfred Pennyworth.”

 

“Nice to meet you, Mr Pennyworth,” Trey said, looking Alfred up and down with the slightly amazed expression of someone who didn’t know that butlers were still an actual thing in this day and age.

 

“Just Alfred, please,” Alfred insisted.

 

“Don’t suppose I can ask you to just call me Trey?” Trey asked, glancing at Dick, who grinned and shook his head.

 

“Under no circumstances,” Alfred said flatly. “Have you gentlemen had breakfast yet?”

 

“Uh… I actually can’t remember the last time I ate,” Trey admitted, rubbing his stomach. “Literally.”

 

“Oh, damn… I’m sorry, Trey, you should’ve said something, we could’ve swung by a cafe to get coffee and food on the way here,” Dick said guiltily.  _ Or maybe I should’ve noticed that the Team didn’t go to get food after picking Trey up last night and nobody’d found my stash in the bunker… some detective  _ I  _ am. _

 

“I actually didn’t realize until right this minute that I was hungry,” Trey said wryly. “Can the house tour start with the kitchen?”

 

“An excellent idea, Master Trey,” Alfred said. “This way, if you please…”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terry takes a tour. Dick and Barbara talk. Tim and Stephanie go clubbing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, wow, I… managed to forget entirely about this fic in… the last four months?! Holy crap, sorry about that, thank you for your patience! After I finally got settled with my new job and flat and hoo, boy, didn’t THAT take forever, and got my writing mojo going, it’s been largely focused on finishing what is now my longest fic I’ve ever written over in the Pokemon fandom. And I am very, very proud of that one, but I’ve had so much planned for this one that I think it’s well past time I got back to it!

{ _ Gotham _ }

{ _ July 9, 06:51 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

Bruce poured every bit of his many years of training and strict self-discipline into not yawning in Trey’s face. He still failed utterly.

 

Luckily, the young man who was devouring Alfred’s pancakes like they were his reason for existence just seemed to find it funny. “Not a morning person?” he asked. “Me neither, to be honest, but I’ve had at least two naps in the last twelve hours that I know of…”

 

“I’m not a morning person, no,” Bruce admitted, taking a sip of coffee, “but truth be told, I haven’t been to bed yet.” Dick whistled. “Nothing fun, Dick. Just reworking some things before the new Arkham facility opens next week. I’ve nearly got the board on the salary issue…”

 

“Bruce, I haven’t been to sleep yet either, don’t make staying awake harder,” Dick groaned, leaning under the table to toss a sausage to Ace. The dog had settled down between Trey and Bruce, dozing in between bites of food. Alfred looked vaguely scandalized every time Dick or Trey tossed down food, but as the delivery man from the Petmart hadn’t arrived yet, they had no actual dog food and the concept of letting a resident of the Manor go hungry, even a canine one, was utter anathema to the butler. “Is Cass gonna join us or does she get to sleep in?”

 

“She went over to Stephanie’s last night,” Bruce said, glancing at the screen of his phone. Cassandra still struggled with reading and writing, but she’d taken to emojis like a duck to water, and was very expressive with them once you got the hang of her code. She and Steph had gotten back fine from patrol last night and were probably still asleep at Steph’s. “Looks like they had fun. They probably only just went to sleep.”

 

“I can go pick her up later, let her know about Trey,” Dick offered. “If she’s been hanging out with Steph all night, she probably needs her sleep!”

 

“What’s the Arkham facility?” Trey asked. “Is it part of your company?”

 

“Mmmm… it is now, more or less, since I’m funding almost every aspect of it,” Bruce said, grateful for a reasonably neutral topic to focus on. “It’s a somewhat infamous maximum-security mental health institution for the criminally insane… for a given value of ‘maximum security’,” he added with a snort. “There’s only so much you can do with a building from the early 19th century to get it up to modern security standards--don’t ask me about the Manor’s security, and my budget’s far larger than Arkham’s has generally been. I’m hoping to change all of that with the new, purpose-built facility. Of course, no matter how good the facility is, if we don’t vet and pay every member of staff properly, at best they’ll be susceptible to bribery and at worst, we get another Dr. Quinn situation…” He trailed off when he realized that Trey was gaping at him. “Sorry, I’m boring you, aren’t I?”

 

“No, no,” Trey said quickly. “You’re just, uh… not what I was expecting. You were up all night working on pay for mental asylum staff?”

 

“It’s just over a week until it opens, so I’m running out of time to sort it out,” Bruce grumbled.

 

“His deepest, darkest secret is that he’s  _ way _ more boring than everybody thinks,” Dick said in a stage whisper. 

 

“Believe me, I  _ wish _ Arkham was boring,” Bruce said drily. 

 

“Such talk will put you off your breakfasts,” Alfred admonished, even though they’d nearly polished off everything he’d cooked between them. 

 

“ _ Nothing _ could put me off of this,” Trey sighed, mopping up a bit of syrup with his last bite of pancake. “Thanks, Al, this is  _ incredible _ .”

 

“Do not mention it, Master Trey,” Alfred said, raising an eyebrow at being called “Al”. “Now that we are refreshed and refuelled, perhaps Master Bruce and Master Dick would care to show you some more of the Manor?”

 

Dick bounced to his feet. “It’s gonna  _ blow your mind _ ,” he promised. “This place is somehow even bigger inside than it looks from the outside.”

 

Bruce was content to let Dick lead the tour, first leaving the small breakfast room for the larger and less-used dining room, then poking through the gallery, ballroom and conservatory that went largely unused except for social events before going through the much better-used library and downstairs study. Bruce tensed a little when Ace ran up to the grandfather clock, barking and wagging his tail, but Trey just scratched the dog’s ears and shook his head.

 

“You have a grandfather clock, a butler and a  _ ballroom _ ,” Trey said in wonder. “Do you go further back in time the more money you have?”

 

“Don’t worry, the den is fully situated in the twenty-first century,” Dick promised, opening the door to the den and gesturing to the widescreen TV, the blu-ray collection and the array of video games consoles. 

 

“Good to know,” Trey said, flopping down on the couch and scratching Ace’s ears when the dog laid his head across the guy’s lap. “Is this, like, a rest stop on the epic journey that is exploring this house? I feel like I should’ve worn better shoes and packed trail mix.”

 

“It can be a rest stop,” Bruce said, sitting down next to him. “Those are pretty good boots, actually.”  _ Maybe I can examine them for evidence after he goes to bed, _ he thought,  _ see if there’s anything that isn’t from the beach in Rhode Island or from Bludhaven _ . 

 

It was hard to stop thinking like a detective.

 

“Don’t worry, there only rooms on this floor past here are Alfred’s, and that’s secret and sacred territory,” Dick assured him, draping himself lengthwise across the arms of a recliner like a particularly big, weird, cat instead of just reclining on it like a human being. “Upstairs, the west wing’s all guest rooms, Bruce’s home office and the gym--we’ve got some good equipment in there if you wanna work out, though there’s also a set of running paths that go down to and around the lake if that’s more your kind of thing.”

 

“I don’t know? I must work out, though, right?” Trey said, flexing an arm and poking the protruding bicep. “What’s the east wing?”

 

“Mostly more guest rooms, though Dick, Cass and I have our rooms there too,” Bruce explained. “Alfred’s making up a room for you there too. The third floor’s all attics these days. I think they were children’s rooms, nurseries, classrooms, things like that back when the house was first built, but that was two hundred years ago.”

 

“Gotcha,” Trey said, closing his eyes and running a hand through his hair. “God… this house is  _ two hundred _ years old? You’re blowing my mind here…”

 

“One of the oldest buildings in Gotham that’s still standing,” Bruce said with a smile. “Most of the city needs rebuilt fairly often.”

 

“Yeah… supervillains are kind of a thing here, aren’t they?” Trey said, opening his eyes and looking from Bruce to Dick. “I mean, I got attacked by a sea monster last night. Is stuff like that gonna happen here?”

 

“You’re safe here, Trey,” Bruce assured him. “It’s rare that any big names make it out here… usually if I’m hosting some public event that they want to crash, and I don’t have anything coming up anytime soon. And even if they do, Batman always gets them.”

 

“You can add him to your superhero bingo card,” Dick suggested. “Have you seen those? There’s a ton of them online. Actually, I probably shouldn’t support them,  _ way _ too many people hang around crime scenes in Bludhaven trying to get a photo of Nightwing to prove they saw him.”

 

“Man, the world is  _ weird _ ,” Trey mused. He pushed himself up, practically bouncing to his feet. “Okay then, how about we check out that gym? Do you guys work out?”

 

“Oh, I just keep fit, but Dick’s a former professional acrobat,” Bruce said, grinning as Dick visibly lit up at the prospect of showing off a little. Bruce had been told by more than a few other Leaguers that Nightwing was one of the most graceful fighters they’d ever seen, always making full use of his flexibility and agility to flow like water through a battle, always somehow being where the knives and bullets weren’t and mowing down enemies as smoothly and easily as if he was dancing. But as amazing as it was to watch him fight, Bruce thought it was infinitely more stunning to watch Dick  _ fly _ \--not using his skills to fight, but for their original purpose, to perform and entertain. 

 

As much as it relieved him to see Dick and Trey bonding, chatting easily all the way up to the gym, he was also curious to see what Trey was capable of, physically. His arms showed the musculature of one who trained--not in a vain way, but a  _ functional _ way, muscles that were trained for use rather than for show. Maybe getting him moving would show them some hints of what that use was.

 

It was  _ hard _ to stop thinking like a detective.

  
  
  


{ _ Gotham _ }

{ _ July 9, 14:32 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

_ Oh my god… in what universe does a history of the Roman Empire go in the radiology section _ ? Barbara mentally groaned, stopping to grab the offending book and add it to her cart of returns. For all that she’d seen in Gotham’s back alleys, or the dark corners of the planet that she’d crept into on Team missions, sometimes it felt like the only real test of her faith in humanity was working at the university library.  _ If I catch  _ one more _ aspiring comedian turning around the mystery novels so that people can’t read the spines, I’m becoming a supervillain. Gotham will burn. _

 

Her phone vibrated silently in her pocket--it had taken a  _ lot _ of tinkering to get a vibrate setting that  _ didn’t _ sound like an angry swarm of bees--and she turned the cart among the stacks, finding an empty aisle to discreetly slip it out and check the screen.

 

_ Dick: Call me when ur on break? Got big news x _

 

Curious as she was, there was no indication that it was urgent, so Barbara went back to her shift, putting away the rest of the books before heading down to the computer lab for the Computer Basics class she taught on Monday afternoons. Though classes were done for the summer, the library stayed open and was still very popular among the graduate students, those with summer make-ups, those getting overprepared for next semester and people doing any number of summer or independent courses. The Computer Basics class was mostly middle-aged to elderly students just trying to keep up with their kids and grandkids, though there was also one guy in his mid-twenties who’d been in a coma since he was eleven and was shyly trying to get to grasps with computers that didn’t beep and screech for half an hour to connect to the internet. He was, it had to be said, coping better with the hardware advances than he was with a world where nobody cared about MySpace anymore.

 

“Hey Alex, I’m done for the day,” she called as she walked up to the front desk after the class was done.

 

“What? But however will I manage this without you?” her coworker replied, gesturing to the calm, quiet library before reaching under the desk to pass her her bag. “Oh, I suppose I’ll survive. What are you up to this evening?”

 

“Don’t really have any plans,” Barbara said, slinging her bag over her shoulder and pulling her phone out of her pocket. “First I’ve gotta call that guy who’s  _ not _ my boyfriend.”

 

“Same,” Alex sighed mournfully, peeking at his phone under the counter. “See you on Wednesday, Babs.”

 

“See you, Alex,” Barbara said, waving on her way out. As soon as she was out of the library doors, she brought up Dick’s text and then phoned him. 

 

He picked up after only a couple of rings. “ _ Babs! Hi! _ ” he said cheerfully. “ _ I’ll be right back, gotta talk to a friend of mine _ ,” he said, his voice a little more distant, then he returned. “ _ Thanks for calling me back. I don’t have a goddamn clue what to make of any of this, honestly. _ ”

 

“Is everything okay, Dick?” Barbara asked in concern. “You didn’t say it was urgent, so--”

 

“ _ It’s not, it’s just… have you talked to Tim today? _ ”

 

“No… is he alright?” Barbara asked, digging her bus pass out of her bag one-handedly as she walked up to the campus bus stop. “How’d his mission yesterday go?”

 

“ _It went fine, great, but on the way back they picked up a stranger, and, uh, long story short… he’s Bruce’s son,_ ” Dick said in a rush. “ _His biological son. For real. Tim repeated the DNA test a bunch of times to be sure. And honestly, Babs, when you see this guy, it’s gonna freak you out, he looks_ so _much like Bruce._ _His name’s Trey. He’s about my age, we think._ ”

 

“Oh my god,” Barbara muttered, stopping in her tracks as Dick’s words sank in. “His…? Who’s his mother?”

 

“ _ We don’t know…  _ he _ doesn’t know. He’s got amnesia, doesn’t remember anything before the Team found him on the beach next to Mount Justice yesterday, _ ” Dick said, sounding troubled. “ _ He’s… strange. He’s a nice guy, friendly, funny, he’s just… odd. There’s definitely more to him than meets the eye but none of us can figure out  _ what.”

 

“Dick… are  _ you _ okay?” Barbara asked. “I can come over this afternoon…”

 

“ _ Actually, can I meet you? I feel like I need to give Bruce and Trey some alone time--Cass is over at Steph’s. I’ll tell you more about it when I see you, okay? _ ”

 

“I’ll meet you at my place if you bring takeout,” Barbara offered, the sight of her bus approaching the stop startling her into movement as she ran to the bus stop. “You can tell me about it there, okay?”

 

“ _ You’re the best, Babs. How do you feel about Thai? _ ”

 

“Sounds good to me, and so does the food,” Barbara said, palming her bus card. “See you there in half an hour?”

 

“ _ Make it forty-five minutes, gotta finish something here before I go, _ ” Dick said, blowing her a kiss before hanging up.

 

Barbara smiled, pocketing her phone and flashing her bus pass at the driver and walking up the aisle as the bus lurched away again, conscientiously bypassing the empty bank of priority seats to make for an empty seat near the back. It wasn’t exactly a shock that an illegitimate kid of Bruce’s had  _ genuinely  _ turned up--frankly, she was more shocked it hadn’t happened sooner. Making Cass into Bruce’s illegitimate daughter had been the easiest sell in the world. She probably could’ve drawn Cass’ paternity test in crayon and nobody would’ve looked twice at it. The fact that Trey had amnesia and no discernible background was more worrying--she had no doubt that Dick, Tim and Bruce had all been trying to look him up, but she resolved to go hunting herself when she got more details out of Dick. Given Bruce’s dating history, there was a legitimate risk that Trey’s mother was a supervillain who was going to come lay waste to Gotham in search of her son. 

 

Barbara Gordon was also woman enough to admit to herself that she was happy that she was who Dick had wanted to talk to about this. What she’d said to Alex was true--she and Dick  _ weren’t _ dating. They’d never dated, though they occasionally swung close to it. But she’d seen Dick’s relationships, and they always hit the same snag: Dick loved people completely and earnestly, and the problem was that even he often wasn’t totally sure if he loved somebody romantically or if he loved them as a friend who it was fun to have sex with. And there was no denying that the sex  _ was _ fun, especially with how flexible Dick was. But she couldn’t commit to him, not until he’d sorted out his own emotions to understand who  _ he _ wanted to commit to. He was graceful about ending his relationships, she knew that much--she’d seen it plenty of times. She just… didn’t want to be just another one of Dick’s amicable exes.

 

_ Not that there’s anything wrong with that _ , she reminded herself.  _ Zatanna and Raquelle and Bette and… well, they’re all great women. Zatanna’s one of my best friends. But none of them were  _ Dick’s _ best friend for years  _ before _ they dated him _ .

 

She could deal with never sleeping with Dick Grayson again if she had to, and if he got into another relationship, he’d be faithful to his partner and she’d respect that happily. It was, if things went strange between them, no longer being the one he’d come to with Thai food when he needed to talk that scared her. 

  
  
  


{ _ Gotham _ }

{ _ July 9, 17:58 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“Every word you say just makes me want to know more,” Barbara said, poking her DNA sequencer with a pen as if that would prompt it to work faster. “I mean, even if it wasn’t for all the other weird stuff, Trey’s related to  _ Bruce _ . He’s  _ got  _ to have a hell of a story.”

 

“Yeah… you know something that’s really been messing with my head, though?” Dick sighed. He was doing a handstand in the middle of her lab, staring thoughtfully at the world upside-down.

 

“The blood rushing to your brain? You’ve been there twenty minutes,” Barbara pointed out. 

 

Dick, with an almost  _ infuriating _ amount of grace, swung down into a cross-legged seated position on the floor, hands resting on his ankles. “It’s something Alfred told me,” he continued. “He took me aside when I was leaving, said there was something I should probably know that Bruce wouldn’t tell me. I mean, hey, what else is new, but… this was pretty serious.”

 

“What is it?” Barbara asked, leaning forwards in her computer chair. “Can you tell me?”

 

“I mean, he said to keep it in the strictest confidence, but if he doesn’t know by now that that means  _ you _ then he’s no longer Alfred,” Dick said with a shrug and a grin that flashed by quickly before his expression grew somber. “He told me when he first heard about Trey, he thought of… well, he said that about thirteen years ago, before my time, there was this woman that Bruce was with. He wouldn’t say much about her, only that Bruce  _ really _ loved her, so much that when she told him she was pregnant he was about to hang up the cape to focus on her and the baby.”

 

“...whoa,” Barbara said, eyes widening. “ _ Bruce _ was going to  _ give up _ being  _ Batman _ ? Just…  _ wow _ .”

 

“Yeah,” Dick said, nodding. “Except… well, obviously he didn’t. Because she lost the baby, and she left Bruce not long after because she couldn’t deal with it. Anyway… Alfred said it’s really gnawing on him, and it’s probably getting at Bruce even worse, that somebody  _ did _ have  _ this _ baby and kept it from him, so if we do find somebody, we’ve gotta find out as much as we can and be careful about how we approach her because Bruce might just blow his lid.”

 

“No kidding… good grief,” Barbara muttered. “Nothing ever goes right for him, does it?”

 

Dick nodded, chewing on his lip distractedly.

 

Barbara sighed. “Dick. What else?”

 

“It’s nothing,” Dick said, shaking his head and smiling a little too quickly.

 

Barbara just fixed him with her most piercing, unblinking stare. “Dick, don’t bullshit me. What else is eating at you?”

 

Dick sighed, leaning back on his hands and staring fixedly at the ceiling as he spoke, which meant he was getting off his chest something that he felt ashamed to say. “I kept thinking, after I picked up Trey… what would it have been like, growing up with him, if he’d grown up with Bruce? If he’d been there when Bruce took me in? I was so goddamn lonely when I first got there, Babs, and Bruce and Alfred were, well…”

 

“Bruce and Alfred,” Barbara supplied.

 

Dick nodded. “Yeah. I love ‘em, but… yeah. And the drive over here, I thought about what it would’ve been like if Bruce hadn’t lost them, if I’d had someone to be a mom to me and a baby sibling…” He sighed heavily. “But then I thought… would Bruce even have taken me in? Maybe his wife wouldn’t have wanted to bring a random orphan into the house when they had a baby. Maybe Bruce wouldn’t even have wanted me if he hadn’t lost that baby. He’d have just felt sorry for me and left, like the rest of the audience that day, let them dump me with social services and forgotten about me…” 

 

“Hey,” Barbara said, sliding off of her computer chair and onto the floor so she could lean forwards and put a hand on Dick’s knee. “Look, I can’t say what Bruce would or wouldn’t have done differently if things had gone differently for him. But it’s no use wondering because here and now, in this life, anybody who knows him can see how much he loves you and how proud of you he is.”

 

Dick looked down, exhaling slowly and smiling a little as he put his hand on Barbara’s. “Thanks for pulling me out of my head, Babs,” he sighed. “I’m sure Bruce is stuck in his head enough for both of us.”

 

“I don’t blame him,” Barbara said, leaning over to kiss Dick’s forehead as she stood up. “What Alfred said… I never really realized how much Bruce must’ve  _ wanted _ to be a dad before he was one. The fact that he missed out on this chance has gotta be killing him. Maybe we should tell him to let us investigate it and for him to focus on Trey for now.”

 

“No way he’ll let us take  _ this _ case out of his hands,” Dick snorted.

 

“Well, if we find a lead, he doesn’t  _ have _ to know straight away, does he?” Barbara said, checking the DNA sequencer. “This is going to take a while anyway…”

 

“This is why I love you,” Dick said, scooping up the empty Thai boxes as he stood up, kissing Barbara on the top of the head as he walked past. 

 

“Love you too, dork,” Barbara said casually, scanning the DNA sequences.

  
  


{ _ Gotham _ }

{ _ July 10, 00:04 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“So let me get this straight,” Spoiler straight as she cracked her escrima stick down on the back of a guy’s hand, causing him to drop his gun with a scream as his bones broke. She spun into a roundhouse kick that knocked him out. “This guy is somehow exactly old enough to be in this tiny window of Big B’s life where there are  _ no  _ possible baby mamas?”

 

“Focus, both of you,” Batman growled as he ran past, flinging explosive batarangs as three men with automatic weapons ran into the room. “Get eyes on Penguin but do  _ not _ engage. He’s more dangerous than he looks.”

 

Robin knew that this information was more for Spoiler’s benefit than his--he’d tangled with Penguin a couple of times over the past couple of years, but this was the first time she’d joined them on busting one of Cobblepot’s deals. It was far too easy to forget that the squat, rotund man who always had an army of armed men at his command was as deadly as any of them and probably twice as cold-blooded. Normally, she’d join Black Bat, patrolling the rest of the city while Batman and Robin handled this specific bust, but they had intelligence that Penguin was trying to break into hard drugs and Spoiler wanted in on stopping him before he got started. 

 

“Apparently,” Robin said, spinning his bo staff once in warning before beginning to swing it. Spoiler ducked as the staff swung over her head and caught the guy running up behind her right in the sternum. The rookie vigilante took advantage of her low spot to kick the guy’s knee out before rising up in an uppercut aimed at a rent-a-thug who tried to drop down on Robin from the gallery level above. “Nightwing and Batgirl are spending the evening combing his DNA to see what they can deduce about his mother, give us a chance to track her down, because both Batman and Agent A are coming up empty for possibilities and  _ he _ doesn’t know anything,” Robin continued as if there’d been no interruption to their conversation.

 

“Digging through DNA… what a romantic evening,” Spoiler sighed, cracking her victim on the head with an escrima stick to make him stay down. 

 

Robin grinned, knowing how much she wanted Barbara and Dick to actually be a  _ couple _ . It seemed like an obvious progression to everybody except for the couple in question. “Hey, I took you to a fancy restaurant tonight, didn’t I?” he quipped, ducking and rolling out of the way of a hail of gunfire and flinging batarangs as he went. Two men were knocked off of the dinner tables that they’d been standing on, joining the veritable carpet of unconscious henchmen now covering the Iceberg Lounge.

 

“Dinner  _ and _ dancing!” Spoiler said, firing a grapple gun at a gunman who hadn’t been hit by a batarang and yanking his legs out from under him. “You’re  _ so _ sweet.”

 

“ _ Stop flirting and follow me, _ ” Batman ordered over the comms. “ _ Most of the guards are coming out of a storeroom at the east end of the club and I’ve just found out why--there’s a new basement under here. Penguin must be down here. _ ”

 

“On our way,” Robin responded, running for the door in question, smacking a groaning henchman with his bo staff as he went just to be sure. “You know what the weirdest thing is? His dog  _ hates _ me.”

 

“You know, I would take very serious, personal offence at that,” Spoiler mused. “Just you?”

 

“Yeah--I talked to Nightwing earlier and he said the dog’s neutral with most people, but it  _ loves _ Batman,” Robin said with a shrug. “It’s only been aggressive towards me.”

 

“I think you need to tell this guy his dog’s broken,” Spoiler said as they spotted Batman standing over the currently closed hatch to the basement. “This guy here’s the scary one.  _ I _ keep wanting to growl defensively when I see him, especially when he does that appearing-suddenly-from-the-shadows thing.”

 

“Save the growling for Cobblepot,” Batman advised, crouching by the hatch with a frown. “Do you hear that?”

 

They both fell silent, leaning down and listening. There were sounds of gunfire and shouting. “They’re fighting something else,” Robin observed. 

 

“Is that good for us?” Spoiler asked.

 

“Depends on who they’re fighting,” Batman said, putting a hand over the hatch handle. “I’ll go in first.  _ Wait _ for my signal before following me in.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Robin said. Spoiler saluted with an escrima stick. Batman flipped the hatch open and was through it and gone in an instant.

 

Spoiler leaned back against a unlabelled crate. Knowing Cobblepot, whatever was in it was probably illegal, but there were no airholes so at least the Penguin wasn’t up to any human trafficking today. “So are you avoiding, y’know…  _ upstairs _ , then?”

 

“Pretty much,” Tim admitted. “I went in and out through the Cave tonight. I’m worried that the dog’ll recognize me. And there’s just… probably a lot going on there that I don’t need to get mixed up in. Y’know, new member of their family and all…”

 

“Hey, Robin,” Spoiler said softly, holstering one escrima stick and leaning forward to squeeze his arm. “Look, I know that unlike everybody else in that house, you’ve got two living parents who are normal humans even if they’re usually on a different continent, but if you’re thinking of yourself as not really part of the family despite having been Robin for  _ three years _ then you need to hand in your genius badge. This guy’s your brother too now, even if he doesn’t know it yet.”

 

“I don’t know, Spoiler,” Robin said reluctantly. “After everything with the Red Hood over the last year… it’s all so complicated for Nightwing and Batman in a way I can’t even begin to imagine. He was their family, but he wasn’t mine, no matter how much I looked up to him when he was Robin.”

 

“Genius badge, now,” Spoiler demanded, holding a hand out. “Hand it over. Your data is skewed and your conclusions flawed if you think your family having complicated feelings about your zombie brother makes you not part of the family.”

 

“I don’t think he’s really a--”

 

“ _ Robin, Spoiler, Penguin and his men are making a run for it, _ ” Batman said abruptly, his voice rapid and terse. “ _ Intercept and stop them. I have my hands full fighting Killer Croc. _ ”

 

“Ohhhh,  _ that’s _ who they were shooting at,” Robin said, swinging the hatch open and then immediately slamming it down on the head of a gunman who was trying to escape back into the club. “This escape tunnel must connect to the sewers.”

 

“I’ve never actually  _ seen _ Killer Croc before,” Spoiler mused, tossing a smoke grenade down the hatch. “Is he really eight feet tall?”

 

“Nine. And you don’t  _ want _ to see him up close, trust me,” Robin said, grimacing as he strapped on his gas mask. Then he pulled up the hatch, bowing as he gestured to it. “Shall we?”

 

“Getting the door for me? You’re a true gentleman,” Spoiler said, leaping down the hatch and bypassing the ladder to land, as it transpired, on the head of the Penguin himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very much cribbing from various sources with the Batfam, pre-and-post reboot, Under the Red Hood, etc, just putting things together in ways I personally like best. I only saw The Killing Joke once and I was not sober for most of it (I was with some mates, we like getting drunk and trashing shitty movies together) so I have no goddamn clue who that nineties sitcom gay best friend Babs worked in the library with was, I just gave her a library buddy name and modelled after a gay guy I used to work in my school library with. God, that movie was awful. How did they find a way to treat Barbara even worse than the original comic?!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightmares run in the family. So do complicated feelings and odd sleep schedules.

{ _ Gotham _ }

{ _ July 10, 04:48 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

Bruce knew that he was extremely lucky that that last blow that Killer Croc landed hadn’t broken any ribs, just bruised them, but they still  _ hurt like hell. _ It had been a long night, he was sore and exhausted, and he was ready to fall into bed and pass out.

 

Despite all that, he snapped to full alert at the sound of a muffled scream coming from the hall at the top of the stairs. Cassandra wasn’t back yet--Stephanie and Tim, who’d been uninjured in the fighting, had gone to join her patrol, with Barbara keeping an eye out for them from her workstation. He’d just seen Alfred go to his own rooms on the ground floor when they left the Cave and Dick had just checked in from Barbara’s ten minutes ago, so who…

 

He crept to the top of the stairs, peering down the hall. Light was faintly shining out from under one of the doors, accompanied by soft sobbing. His shoulders slumped as he remembered, with a guilty pang, that Trey was here. His  _ son _ . 

 

Who apparently was as prone to night terrors as his father and siblings.

 

Bruce stepped silently up to the door of the room they’d set up for Trey, wondering what to do. He’d been just as much at a loss when he’d first taken Dick in--though the first time the boy had screamed himself awake, it had been to the sight of a panicked Bruce all but breaking the door down, terrified that Two-Face had escaped the police before they got him to Arkham and followed Batman home somehow. Once he’d realized that Dick had had a nightmare, he hadn’t had the faintest clue what to do for the boy. Thankfully, Dick had solved that problem by tremulously asked Bruce to stay and he hadn’t hesitated to do so, sitting next to the child and gently stroking his hair until he fell asleep again--something that Bruce remembered Alfred doing for him when he was a child with nightmares himself. Every time that Dick had had screaming nightmares thereafter, Bruce had sat by the child and stroked his hair until he fell asleep again, once or twice successfully calming the boy before he even woke up. 

 

He wasn’t sure if that would be the right approach for Trey, though. Dick had been eight when Bruce took him in, fourteen the last time Bruce remembered him having a nightmare bad enough to scream himself awake, but Trey was twenty and, frankly, not Dick. Would he prefer to be left alone?

 

_ I have to at least ask, _ he decided, knocking gently on the door. “Trey?” he called. “Are you okay?”

 

There were several seconds of Bruce trying to decide whether he should go in and check if there was no response or go away and leave Trey alone before the young man hoarsely called, “Bruce?”

 

Taking that as an invitation, Bruce slowly opened the door and stepped inside. Ace barked happily and wagged his tail but didn’t move from Trey’s side. The young man had turned on his bedside light, so Bruce could see him sitting up, drenched in sweat, one arm around Ace’s neck and the other propping himself up as he stared at Bruce in an odd kind of wide-eyed shock. A moment later, recognition flickered in Trey’s eyes. “Oh,” he croaked, scrubbing tears out of his eyes. “Um, did I, uh, y’know, wake you…?”

 

“No,” Bruce said, “I had a nightmare, too.” It wasn’t totally true, of course, but it wasn’t as if nightmares were an uncommon occurrence for him, either. “Are you alright?”

 

Trey sighed, brushing sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes. “Yeah… yeah, I’m fine,” he said, smiling weakly. “I’m gonna get a shower and go back to sleep, maybe.” He made a face as he stood up, wiping sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. He slept shirtless and, while Tim had mentioned Trey having a lot of bad scars, it was still startling to see the true extent of the damage--he’d only gotten a look at Trey’s arms in the gym earlier, when Dick had been showing off a few acrobatic moves and offered to teach Trey a couple. Trey had been hesitant to try out the exercises Dick was showing him, but had proven to either be a natural or already have some gymnastics in his background--how much, Bruce didn’t have a read on quite yet. He’d have to get them sparring at some point to really judge Trey’s combat instincts. He didn’t want to push the young man, in case his confusion and fear about the situation was genuine--but he needed to get an accurate read on what kind of fighter Trey was  _ soon _ , in case it wasn’t.

 

Either combat or the world’s weirdest car accident was definitely in Trey’s background. Bruce’s expert eye picked out stabs from edged weapons, slashes from claw marks, gunshot wounds and burns, wounds that had needed stitches and wounds that hadn’t been treated as quickly as they should have been… it was an all too familiar collection of scars, similar to his own, Dick’s, the set that Tim had already acquired in his two years as Robin. Trey had definitely seen combat--a  _ lot _ of it. Was that what his nightmares had been about?

 

“I’m okay,” Trey insisted when Bruce didn’t move or speak. “But, uh… thanks. For checking up on me. But I’m okay.”

 

“Okay,” Bruce said, scratching Ace’s ears when the dog jumped off the bed after Terry and then detoured to lick Bruce’s hand. “Sleep well. Both of you.” He gave Ace a last pat, then let himself out of the room. 

 

From the hall, he could hear the pipes hum as Trey turned on his shower. He wished he knew whether leaving Trey be was the right thing to do, or if he should’ve pushed Trey to open up. Bruce himself was an extremely private person, but one thing he’d learned raising Dick was that some people  _ wanted _ to be pushed to share their thoughts, to be assured that somebody cared enough to want to know. He’d almost learned it too late and come far too close for comfort to destroying his relationship with Dick forever. Jason had been much more prickly, but still, over time, had started to open up more, and even now offered  _ very _ little resistance to sharing his feelings, which admittedly these days were mostly rage and hurt. He strongly suspected that Cassandra was an open book, in response to how obvious other people’s feelings and intentions could be to her, but learning to read her was a slow and complex process that made her more enigmatic than she was really trying to be. Tim opened up with very little prompting, but Bruce suspected that he wasn’t particularly comfortable with it and only did so because he didn’t want to be seen as standoffish, and figuring out his comfort zones could be difficult.

 

Was this the kind of thing that parents just  _ knew _ when they’d raised their kids from infancy? Bruce was at the age where a lot of his society contemporaries had kids who were reaching their teens, and almost all of them were complaining that they barely knew their kids anymore, but surely they had at least  _ something _ to work from, even as the kids aged and changed… those who raised their kids themselves, at least, as opposed to leaving the nanny to handle it. Trey was a complete stranger, and that ached.

 

The pipes were still humming as Bruce dragged himself into bed and dropped off into an uneasy sleep.

  
  
  


{ _ Gotham _ }

{ _ July 10, 11:27 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

The phone rang for nearly half a minute before it was picked up with a fuzzy “ _ whazzit? _ ”

 

“Your Uber has arrived,” Dick intoned, “now doubling as a wake-up call and containing your breakfast coffee and pancakes.”

 

“ _ C’ffee, _ ” Stephanie mumbled, hanging up. 

 

Dick kicked back, sipping at his own coffee while he waited for the girls to appear. It took about fifteen minutes before the front door open. Cassandra bounced out, as bright-eyed as if she hadn’t been cracking heads until five in the morning. She was dragging a zombified-looking Steph by the hand. “No Tim?” Dick asked, leaning back to open the back doors of the car for them and handing them cups of coffee.

 

_ Went home, _ Cass signed.  _ No parents. Safe. Thank you _ . She took her coffee and sipped it with a happy sigh. 

 

Steph drank about half of her still-scalding coffee before speaking. “This is inhuman,” she declared. “It’s the summer holidays. I shouldn’t have to be up before noon even if I  _ didn’t _ nearly fight Killer Croc at ass o’clock this morning.”

 

“You didn’t have to come down,” Dick pointed out. “You could’ve just said bye to Cass and gone back to sleep.”

 

“No, I’ve gotta see this skinny Bruce who’s giving Tim so much anxiety,” Steph said. “Also, I wanna see pancakes. You said pancakes.”

 

Dick passed the bag back, along with the coffee he’d gotten for Tim. Steph didn’t usually drink espresso, but she looked like she needed it today. “He’s not that skinny,” he said, “just not as big as Bruce. Most people aren’t.”

 

Cass, her hands busy with pancakes, giggled. Dick grinned victoriously as he started up the car. Even if Cass never got the hang of verbal speech, hearing her  _ vocalize _ at all, making noise freely without being afraid that she was going to be hurt for it, was tremendous progress from the deadly silent girl they’d first met. 

 

Most of what they knew about Cassandra, they’d had to deduce. David Cain hadn’t been particularly talkative about his daughter other than demanding that she leave Gotham with him, and he’d been even less talkative after Batman had knocked most of his teeth out and broken his jaw. For most people, watching Batman fight wasn’t the most comforting thing in the world, even when he was fighting to protect them--he didn’t move as elegantly or showily as Dick did, he didn’t have Babs’ grace, he wasn’t as playful as Steph was or Jason had been, he didn’t move as swiftly or lightly as Tim did. He simply fought with stark efficiency and brutality, a steady and unstoppable force of pure wrath. Yet Cassandra had seen something that not only made her smile, but actually had her diving in to  _ hug Batman _ as soon as the fight was over. 

 

There were probably other cover stories they could have manufactured for Cassandra other than making her Bruce’s daughter that wouldn’t be  _ too _ much more work, but none of them were complaining, least of all Cass herself.

 

“So, any news on the sea monster yet?” Steph asked, carefully dunking a rolled-up pancake in a plastic sachet of honey.

 

“Not yet,” Dick said, shaking his head. “No more have appeared, nobody’s laid claim to it yet, and we can’t really figure out what i was doing  _ there _ . That the Team was there was a coincidence…”  _ But why was Trey there? Was it something to do with whatever cost him his memory? _

 

“Maybe they just wanted to make a scene by attacking Mount Justice?” Steph suggested. “I mean, it’s pretty well known that it was a League hangout, even if it’s a pile of rubble now. Maybe they think there’s another new hideout under the rubble or something… Wouldn’t be the first time the League used the place to hide in plain sight, after all.”

 

“Hmmm… good point,” Dick said thoughtfully, continuing to drive to Wayne Manor on autopilot as he turned over Steph’s suggestion.  _ It’s true. The League gave us Mount Justice specifically because it was known to be abandoned. Batman sure as hell wouldn’t let them use the same trick twice, but maybe whoever sent the monster didn’t know that…  _

 

Cass tapped him on the shoulder. He glanced up into the rearview mirror to see her signing  _ brother? _ at him.

 

“Right, you want to know more about Trey,” Dick said, nodding. “How much did Tim tell you?”

 

_ Man, fighter, dog, Bruce-eyes. _

 

“I showed him some basic gymnastics yesterday and he did just fine, even when I slipped in some more complicated moves,” Dick mused. “He’s strong, good balance, definitely had some training. Bruce was gonna try some sparring with him today, see what his combat instincts are like. I’ll be interested to see what you make of him, Cass--you can read people better than any of us.”

 

Cass nodded, but rolled her eyes. “Yeah, cool, thanks for the case notes, but what’s he  _ like _ ?” Steph asked. Cass nodded, smiling.

 

“He’s… nervous, definitely, but I think he’s a nice guy,” Dick said, thinking back to dinner. Trey had praised Alfred’s cooking until the butler had been veritably glowing with politely restrained pride, and he’d been full of questions--about Dick’s job, his family, about Cass, about Bruce’s company and charities, even asking Alfred about himself. Dinner guests at the Manor weren’t common, and the ones that did  _ always _ overlooked Alfred in dinner conversation. Half the time, they overlooked Dick and Cass in their attempts to secure Bruce’s attention, which  _ never _ escaped his notice. Trey, though, seemed truly interested in the people around him, which made him a nice guy if he was genuine--and exceptionally dangerous if he wasn’t. “He’s pretty talkative. You’ll like him, Steph, he can’t seem to manage two sentences without sass. Probably a coping mechanism, but if this is how fast his wits work when he’s anxious, he’s probably a  _ terror _ in a good mood.”

 

“Damn, and this is  _ you _ calling him talkative and sassy,” Steph noted, pressing the last pancake on Cass. “Seriously, Cass, I’m stuffed.” Cass raised an eyebrow, pushing the last pancake back at her. “Okay, fine, I’m not stuffed, but for real, if you want the last pancake, you have it, okay? It’s a friend thing. I wanna give you the last pancake because you’re my friend. Does that make sense?”

 

Cass tilted her head, then smiled, ripping the pancake in half and shoving one half in Steph’s mouth before eating the other half herself. “Friend thing,” she declared through a mouthful of pancake.

 

Dick grinned at the rearview mirror, deciding that Cass got to talk with her mouth full as much as she wanted. She had a way of being a special exception like that.

  
  


{ _ The Watchtower _ }

{ _ July 10, 11:27 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“Aquaman, Aqualad,” Black Lightning greeted them as he walked into lab #4. “Any ideas?”

 

“Few,” Aquaman sighed, stroking his beard as he stared down at the tentacle piece with a frown. “It is not natural, that much is clear--it has been enhanced somehow. I would prefer to send it to Atlantis for further examination by our labs, but… Well, see for yourself.” He gestured to Kaldur, who picked up the tentacle with forceps and slowly lowered it into a dish of water. 

 

As soon as the piece touched the water, it began to thrash.

 

“Worse still, it regenerates,” Kaldur said, pointing to the severed end, which indeed visibly grew a few centimetres from the few seconds it was in the water. He put it back down on the dry counter, where its movement slowed, eventually stopping entirely. “It is not safe to take any part of it back under the ocean. Had Robin not suggested removing it from the water to attack it, it may not have been possible for the Team to defeat it.”

 

“What about bringing some of your people here to examine it?” Black Lightning suggested. 

“I want to know if this thing is magic, science, alien,  _ what _ , as soon as possible.”

 

“Well, chairman, if you’ll grant access, I need only bring the single most powerful sorceress in Atlantis up to examine it,” Aquaman said, grinning a big, proud grin that he always did whenever the subject of his wife came up. “At least we know how to defeat it, should more occur.”

 

“Damn, Aquaman, don’t jinx us,” Black Lightning said with a shudder. “Just because this thing’s the only lead we’ve got on who was messing with Mount Justice doesn’t mean we need any  _ more  _ of it.”

 

“The only lead? The Team’s reports mentioned finding a stranger,” Aqualad said with a frown. “He was left with Robin and Nightwing, was he not?”

 

“He was, and they checked in that they hadn’t fully tracked down his identity but did find his father,” Black Lightning said, folding his arms and frowning. “But they’re being cagey as hell about it, and won’t even confirm or deny that he might be involved, just ‘still investigating’. Any chance you could talk to Nightwing, Aqualad?”

 

“Gladly,” Aqualad said, side-eying the dead-again tentacle. “I too would like to--” He was cut off by an alarm suddenly blaring throughout the room.

 

“Monitor Room, what’s going on?!” Black Lightning shouted, pressing his comm. 

 

“ _ It’s the sea monster from Mount Justice, _ ” Hal Jordan, Green Lantern, responded. “ _ Six more turned up, this time outside of major cities. All available League and Team members, respond and prepare to dispatch!” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Made Black Lightning the League Chairman at this time because I just watched his new series and it’s hella good. I highly recommend it. I might try and sneak his daughters into the background of this fic somewhere. Anissa’s easily my favourite. She could punch me into a car and I’d probably thank her.
> 
> This chapter brought to you by a) my new goal of a biweekly update schedule, alternating this fic and my ongoing series over on the Pokemon side, and b) Outsiders hype. I’m gonna have to get the new streaming service, aren’t I? You got me, DC. You got me with Young Justice promising Spoiler and Katana. Curious to where the Swamp Thing and Harley Quinn shows are gonna go too.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trey meets his sister. Several members of the Team meet some mysterious strangers.

{ _ Gotham City, USA _ }

{ _ July 10, 11:29 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

Dick nearly crashed his car into the manor gates when the Justice League alert came through on his comm.

 

“Whoa!” Steph yelled, grabbing the back of Dick’s chair. “What the hell, Dick?!”

 

“League alert,” Dick said, course correcting and speeding up the drive. “It’s bad.”

 

“I’ll say,” Steph muttered, sitting back and clinging to her seatbelt. They bailed out of the car at high speed, running into the foyer just in time to catch Bruce headed towards the study.

 

“Good, you’re here,” he said, spotting them. “Trey’s in the shower. I’m taking the jet and going to the New York site. Tell him Lucius called me into the office.”

 

“You’re going alone?” Dick said. “Shouldn’t one of us--”

 

“I’m not the only Leaguer going to New York, and I need you here, keeping an eye on Trey,” Bruce said, shaking his head and continuing towards the study. “We were just sparring, and…” He glanced sidelong at Dick as he turned the hands on the clock. “I’ll tell you more later, but he’s too good not to be trained. I’ll want to hear your impressions of him, but not now.” He closed the clock behind him as he headed down the stairs.

 

“Man, that must be a  _ serious _ alert,” Stephanie said as they went back upstairs to the home gym. 

 

“Sea monsters attacking six cities,” Dick sighed, tipping his head as he heard the water pipes fall silent. “I guess he’s coming out of the shower. C’mon. I’ll introduce you when he gets out.”

 

They didn’t have long to wait. Terry walked out of the ensuite bathroom a couple of minutes later, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He was carrying a hoodie under one arm while towelling off his damp hair with the other. “Whoa… hi?” he said, pausing as he spotted Dick, Cass and Steph. “You are not Bruce.”

 

“Hope we didn’t startle you,” Dick said, waving. “Bruce had to run off to the office--Lucius is having some sort of emergency. But I’m here to introduce you to our sister, Cassandra, and her best friend Stephanie, who came along to say hi. Cass, Steph, this is Trey.”

 

“Holy shit, he  _ does _ look like a younger, prettier Bruce,” Steph burst out. “Did I say that aloud? Hi, I’m Steph.”

 

Cass poked her shoulder. “Boyfriend,” she reminded Stephanie.

 

“I can still window shop,” Stephanie argued.

 

“Your boyfriend’s a lucky guy,” Trey said, pulling the hoodie on. “How about you, Cass? You got a boyfriend I should help intimidate or something…?” He trailed off as Cass walked towards him, staring intensely. “Uh… hi?” he said again, slowly zipping up his hoodie while maintaining eye contact with Cass. She shifted, then grinned and lunged at him in a full tacklehug.

 

“I told you she’s a hugger,” Dick laughed as Trey caught Cass, grinned, and then swung her around just to hear her laugh. “Also, any girlfriend who turns out to not be worthy, Cass can  _ definitely  _ handle herself. I told you she’s a dancer, right? Do you have any idea how hard ballerinas can kick?”

 

“Nice to meet you, too, then,” Trey said, setting Cass down. “So, Cass, Steph, you two friends from school?”

 

“We share extracurriculars,” Steph said breezily. “I guess you’re not planning to register for high school. What about college, though? Cass, Tim and I are all looking at Gotham U, though Tim could  _ totally _ get into the Ivy Leagues--”

 

“For all I know, I’m already  _ in _ college somewhere,” Trey said, sticking his hands in the hoodie pockets. “I don’t really wanna make too many plans until I know more about  _ me _ . But hey, I wanna know about you,” he said, putting an arm around Cass’ shoulder. “What’re you thinking about doing in college?”

 

Cass tipped her head, but didn’t speak before, with a loud bark, Ace came running into the room. He made a beeline for Trey, tugging at his sleeve and whining. “Oh my god, he’s  _ beautiful _ ,” Steph sighed, holding her hand out to Ace. He sniffed her hand, then backed away, baring his teeth. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Steph said, backing away. “Does your dog not like me? I’m offended, I want you to know…”

 

“He seems to either super like people or super hate them, no in between,” Trey said, scratching Ace’s ears. “You need out, boy?” Ace barked loudly. “Guess that answers that. I’ll take him out for a stretch and meet you guys back here for lunch?”

 

“I’ll come with you,” Dick offered. “These grounds are pretty big…”

 

Trey shook his head. “Thanks, but Bruce took me around this morning, and, uh…” He glanced at Cass and Steph. “Sorry, everybody’s super nice, you just surprised me turning up and… it’s a lot, right now. Everything’s a lot. Does that make sense?”

 

“Well, it’s not as if you have anything to compare it to,” Dick said, patting Trey’s shoulder. “We’ll be waiting for you down in the kitchen, okay?” 

 

“Thanks,” Trey said with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Cass, and you too, Steph… see you in a bit, once I’ve had a minute to breathe?”

 

Cass just high-fived him with a reassuring smile. “It’s a lunch date,” Stephanie said with a wink. Trey winked back, then whistled at Ace, leading the dog out of the room.

 

“I’m serious, I’m really offended that the dog doesn’t like me,” Steph said mournfully once Trey was gone. “That confirms it, Trey’s a mobster, he must be evil, there’s no other explanation.”

 

“Oooooooor Ace smelled some of Tim’s scent on you,” Dick said, waggling his eyebrows until Stephanie punched him in the arm. “Ow. Anyway, remember, Ace hated Tim on sight. Which I guess might be points in the ‘mobster’s dog’ column. What did you think of him, Cass?”

 

Cass looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Surprised,” she said. “Scared. Sad. Deep, deep sad. Trying to pretend.” She looked back down at Dick. “He… defend,” she said, shifting her arms and feet slightly, as if about to take up a fight position, then raising her hand to sign.  _ He was ready to defend himself when I went to hug him, _ she said.  _ He is always ready to defend himself. But he would not have hurt me-- _

 

“Could he?” Dick asked.

 

Cassandra gave him a grin that answered  _ that _ .  _ He does not want to hurt anybody. He is afraid. _

 

“Yeah,” Dick sighed, starting to walk down towards the kitchen. “You agree that he’s definitely been trained to fight?”

 

Cass nodded. “Yeah, but that could mean a lot of things, couldn’t it?” Steph put in. “I mean, I know a mystery amnesia turning up is all kinds of suspicious, but he’s also a dude with no idea where he is or what’s happening to him, and that’s all kinds of scary. You guys need to stop testing him and give him some space. I mean, have you even played Mario Kart with the guy?”

 

“That’s not an official profiling technique, Steph,” Dick said, quirking a grin.

 

“It should be,” she said firmly. “Hi, Alfred!” she called brightly, waving as they walked into the kitchen, where the butler was stirring something delicious-smelling on the stove. “Ooooh, that smells good. Is that a calming and relaxing lunch for Trey when he gets back from walking his bizarro dog?”

  
  


{ _ New York State, USA _ }

{ _ July 10, 11:42 EDT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“Something’s going on down there,” Blue Beetle said suddenly, frowning as he looked down. They weren’t even quite at the city yet--Superman, Batman and Guy Gardner reportedly had the sea monster under control and wanted some members of the Team in the city, overlooking the civilian evacuation. Nevertheless, on a stretch of highway below, there was a lone truck stop, the only building for a few miles . “Scarab’s picking up a big heat signature…” There was a sudden plume of smoke as a window smashed somewhere below, tongues of fire waving out of the broken panel. “Guess that’d be it. Shit, I’m reading a  _ lot _ of people still inside!”

 

“Well, what’re we waiting for?!” Wonder Girl exclaimed, standing up. “Let’s get down there and help them before the gas tanks go up!”

 

“Absolutely, but remember, girl:  _ delicately, _ ” Bumblebee reminded the over-enthusiastic young Amazon. “Do  _ not _ drop a building on my head!”

 

“I’ll be careful,” Wonder Girl promised, scowling but also blushing, probably remembering the time she’d done exactly that, bursting through what turned out to be a load-bearing wall to reach trapped civilians. 

 

“Then Kid Flash, fly the cycle, it’s got some fire suppression equipment,” Bumblebee ordered the only non-flier among them. “Kappa team to Watchtower--we’ve run into a serious fire situation with no emergency services en route. We’re diverting to handle it. Blue Beetle, get me a dust storm. Do  _ not _ let the fire get to any gas tanks! Wonder Girl, Static, with me--we’re gettin’ folks out!”

 

“ _ Epsilon team are also en route, they can handle New York, _ ” Mal said after a moment. “ _ Get those people safe, and check in when you’re done. _ ”

 

“Will do, baby,” Bumblebee promised, blowing him a kiss before switching back to her team’s channel. “Alright, let’s go!”

 

She wasn’t far in the door when she could tell something was wrong. There hadn’t been any trucks outside, thankfully, yet there were a  _ lot _ of people running about the burning cafeteria with fire extinguishers. There seemed to be a staggering number of heavily-armed security guards for a single truck stop, and the fact that several of them, on seeing Static, Bumblebee and Wonder Girl, stopped fighting the fire and started  _ shooting _ at them was extremely telling. 

 

“Hey! Hang on! We’re here to  _ help!”  _ Wonder Girl yelped, frantically deflecting bullets.

 

“Either a League-hating militia’s meeting in this truck stop, or this is  _ not _ actually a truck stop,” Static said, using electricity to pick several men up by their guns and fling them outside. “Hopefully they don’t hate us enough to run into a burning building just to shoot us some more.”

 

“ _ I’d say it’s answer B, hermano, _ ” Blue Beetle said. “ _ I went into the kitchen to find some water source and there’s, uh… there’s a secret tunnel down here. _ ”

 

“Secret tunnel?” Kid Flash exclaimed excitedly, speeding into the room. “Dude, that is  _ so _ crash! Finding a secret lab is how the first Aqualad, Robin and Kid Flash discovered Superboy and founded the Team! We’ve  _ gotta _ check it out!”

 

“I’m gonna inform the Watchtower,” Bumblebee said, dragging a couple of downed security guards out of the door. “Gonna get some blueprints on this building, see if there’s  _ supposed _ to be anything down here. Hey, Guardian?” she called, switching channels. “Check my location--is there  _ supposed _ to be a truck stop here?”

 

“ _ It was hidden in a wall and I only found it because of Scarab’s sensors, so I’m guessing it’s not on the floorplans _ ,” Blue Beetle said. 

 

“Don’t worry,” Wonder Girl said confidently. “If there’s any super-clones down there, I’ll handle ‘em!”

 

“Whatever’s down there, it’s taking a whole lotta power,” Static put in, frowning in the direction of the kitchen. 

 

“‘Cause it’s a  _ secret evil lab, _ duh!” Kid Flash pointed out, rapidly circling some of the smaller fires to drain their oxygen. “By the way, Sphere can run her own fire suppression. She’s a very capable lady. I have  _ gotta _ see this secret tunnel!” He shot off into the kitchen as Sphere, bleeping reassuringly, sprayed foam through a window. 

 

“Alright, the word from on high is that the blueprints for this building do  _ not _ show anything down here,” Bumblebee said as they ran into the kitchen and stared down the hidden staircase to the sealed door at the bottom. “We’ve got half an hour to check in again before backup gets deployed, so let’s move.”

 

“I got the door!” Wonder Girl called, flying down the stairs. Static flew slightly faster, shorting out the electronic lock with a touch and causing the door to slide open.

 

“Delicate,” he reminded her.

 

“Fine, sure,” she mumbled, blushing and stomping through the door. 

 

The corridor on the other side was empty. It wasn’t long, leading to a second door that let them out into an open-plan lab space that was full of computer banks, benches of equipment, and, scattered loosely about the floor, about eight scientists.

 

“Scarab says they’re all alive, just unconscious,” Blue Beetle reported as Bumblebee flew around to check them. “Scarab, what  _ is _ all this shit?”

 

“These are blood samples,” Kid Flash reported, zipping around the room and stopping by some sort of glass-fronted cabinet. “This is a sample freezer. Blood, hair--oh  _ ewwww _ \--”

 

“Hey, there’s another door over here,” Wonder Girl called. “No, wait, this is the bathroom…” She opened another door. “Here we go, an ominous corridor full of unconscious security guards!”

 

“Whoa,” Blue Beetle said, joining her at the door and staring at the corridor full of sleeping guards. “That’s a whole lotta firepower. What do you think got ‘em?”

 

“What do you think they were  _ guarding _ ?” Static added, eying the long corridor full of doors--six on each side, one at the very end. They were numbered oddly--starting not at one but two, three, four…

 

“J, Q… huh?” Wonder Girl said in confusion as she dragged out sleeping guards by their collars. “What the hell kind of number system is this?”

 

“They’re playing cards,” Bumblebee realized. “What the hell?”

 

“Most of them are empty, but the five at the end’ve got people inside,” Blue Beetle said, pointing. “Should we let ‘em out?”

 

“Wonder Girl, Static, get all these unconscious folks out of the building,” Bumblebee ordered. “Kid Flash, get upstairs, give the Watchtower an update and let me know how that fire’s doing. I’m guessing nobody here called emergency services. Blue Beetle, come help me check out this lab.” She gestured to the guns the guards were holding. “There’s an awful lot of these guys with an awful lotta firepower for just five people, and I wanna know  _ why _ before we let ‘em out.”

 

The computers in the lab hadn’t been damaged by whatever had knocked out all of the scientists--one or two were still logged on. When Bumblebee checked one of them, the screensaver was set to kick in after five minutes--and it hadn’t.

 

“Whatever did this… did it just before we got here,” she said quietly, freezing. 

 

“Uh, yeah, ‘bout that,” Kid Flash said, zooming back into the room. “I saw somebody leaving on my way upstairs--like, didn’t  _ see _ them but I could see camoflauge, y’know, like martians, except the building’s still on fire so itcouldn’tbemartiansbecausetheydon’tlikefireandItriedtofollowthembut--”

 

“Kid Flash! KID! Chill out!” Bumblebee ordered. “Slow down! You’re babbling!”

 

“Wait, you can see invisible stuff?” Blue Beetle said in surprise.

 

“Well, see, how martian camouflage works is that they shapeshift super fast to imitate what’s around them so you can’t tell them apart from their background, right?” Kid Flash said, fidgeting with his hands as he fought to stay at human speed. “And they change  _ super _ fast, nanosecond to nanosecond, but I’m faster. I can see a little sorta ripple where they don’t quite catch up. Whoever it was either has the same kinda powers, or cloaking tech that imitates it.”

 

“It’s  _ good _ cloaking tech, then, ‘cause Scarab didn’t see  _ shit _ ,” Blue Beetle said, looking concerned. “You think it was one of the prisoners here?”

 

“Maybe,” Bumblebee said, looking up a prisoner list and finding none. The euphemistic ‘asset roster’ held what she was looking for--a list of the inhabitants of the thirteen rooms. “Shit,” she muttered.

 

“What is it?” Blue Beetle asked.

 

“Metahumans,” Bumblebee said grimly. “Beetle, get all this shit downloaded. Static,” she shouted as the younger hero flew into the room, “let Wonder Girl finish up. You and Kid Flash are gonna come with me and help let these poor folks out.”

 

The first door they cautiously opened,  _ 10, _ revealed a huge black teenage boy, sitting on a bare bunk and glaring cautiously at Bumblebee as she walked through the door. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “You a new one?”

 

“I’m not a metahuman, hon, though these two are,” Bumblebee said, gesturing to Kid Flash and Static. “We’re from the Justice League. They had an awful lotta firepower on you outside. Doesn’t exactly look like you’re here by choice. We’re here to let you out.”

 

“‘Bout damn time,” the young man sighed, standing up. He was wearing a skintight black-and-white leotard that seemed to emphasize his immensely muscular build. “I always figured the Justice League didn’t give a shit about a handful of missing kids. Where the hell’ve you been?”

 

“Hey, the League cares about kidnapped kids,” Static insisted. “There’s just a  _ hell  _ of a lot of us to find. What’s your name?”

 

“They’ve been calling me Ten, but… it’s Eddie,” the guy said. “You’re gonna let the rest out?”

 

“Planning on it,” Bumblebee said, gesturing to Static. The younger metahuman yelped when Eddie grabbed his arm.

 

“Sorry, man, I’ve got super-strength, can’t always handle it,” Eddie said, letting Static go. “I just mean… Jack and Queen and King, yeah, let them out. They’ve mostly got a handle on what they can do. But Ace…” He shook his head. “You’ve gotta keep that kid locked up. I don’t think she means to hurt anybody, but shit, when they first brought me here, there were thirteen of us…” He gestured to the eight doors to empty rooms. “Not everybody who died died because of the experiments. They’d test our powers on each other a lot. People who look at that kid don’t live, you hear me?”

 

“I hear you, Eddie, but we can’t leave anybody locked up down here, least of all a kid,” Bumblebee said. “Not least because the damn building’s still on fire…”

 

“Yeah, I just had a look,” Kid Flash said, skidding to a stop next to Bumblebee. “Sphere’s got it under control, mostly, but we’d still better get out of here sooner rather than later. Plus, it’s not just me--she detected something flying away from the building, but she couldn’t chase it ‘cause she was on fire control. Something got out of here.” As he said that, Eddie looked anxiously at Ace’s door again.

 

Static shorted out the doors. “Jack? Queen? King?” Eddie shouted. “Yo, it’s Ten! The Justice League’s here to rescue us?”

 

“Are you shitting me?” Queen, a white, platinum blonde teenage girl said, sticking her head out of her door. “Holy shit, you’re not.”

 

“Where the fuck have you been?!” Jack, a skinnier boy with straggly black hair, demanded. “They’ve been  _ torturing  _ us!”

 

“C’mon, it’s not like any of our families filed missing persons reports,” King, a taller, older young man said bitterly. All three of them were wearing similar skintight black and white leotards.

 

The only door that remained closed was Ace’s.

 

“Yo! Ace! Whatever your name really is!” Kid Flash called, zipping over to the door. 

 

“Hey, stay away from there!” Queen yelled.

 

“I warned ‘em,” Eddie sighed.

 

“Hey, Bumblebee, I downloaded everything, and I wanted to flag--hey, folks,” Blue Beetle said, waving at Eddie, Jack, Queen and King. “There’s reports of the powers of everybody here, and, uh… their best guess is that eye contact with Ace can kinda corrode your brain.”

 

“You think that’s why she’s wearing this wild helmet thing?” Kid Flash said, zipping over and sticking his head through the door. “Hey kid! You can’t see me, but I’m Kid Flash! I’m from the Justice League, and we’re gonna get you out of here, okay?”

 

“Hey, Bumblebee,” Static said quietly. “Where  _ are _ we gonna take ‘em?”

 

“We need to take them somewhere safe,” Bumblebee said, keeping an eye on Kid Flash as he stood in the doorway, chattering a mile a minute to the unseen Ace. 

 

“Not STAR labs, though,” Static said firmly. “They’ve been locked up and experimented on.  _ Last _ thing they need after that is  _ more _ experiments!”

 

“Hey, no,” Bumblebee said, patting Static’s shoulder. “We’re not gonna let that happen, okay? We’ll get these five somewhere safe.”

 

Almost before the words were out of her mouth, the whole building shook as something on the floor above exploded. Bolts of energy shot out of King’s hands as he startled, and either Jack or Queen caused the steel walls around them to buckle in fright.

 

“Hey, I’ve got everybody else out, are you coming or what?!” Wonder Girl shouted down the stairs. “The gas main went up, we won’t be able to get out of the kitchen in a minute!”

 

“KF, grab Ace and don’t go romantically staring into her eyes, we’re getting out of here!” Bumblebee yelled. 

 

“Aww, like I’d cheat on my boy BB,” Kid Flash said, zipping back out carrying a preteen girl wearing another monochrome leotard and an odd, heavy helmet that hid her entire head. He kissed Blue Beetle on the cheek before disappearing in a rush of wind. 

 

“You heard the woman, let’s go, let’s go!” Static shouted, ushering the four remaining metahumans back to the surface. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s still Monday somewhere, right? Right :P Anyway, have I ever told you all how I would actually die for Cassandra Cain


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> M'gann makes a discovery. Dick and Kaldur make decisions.

{ _ Logan Wildlife Reserve, Qurac _ }

{ _ July 10, 23:01 EEST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“That’s it,” Conner grouched as the four older escapees of the lab dispersed with bags of new clothes to find empty bedrooms and bathrooms to change out of their lab jumpsuits in. “If the League’s gonna keep dropping off lost kids with us, they’re building us a bigger farmhouse.”

 

“Or the League needs more safehouses for people that don’t want to go to a lab or military institution,” M’gann mused. She and Conner qualified as heavy military all on their own, so the farmhouse was a lot more homely than the Watchtower or any branch of STAR Labs. 

 

“If Batman wasn’t so paranoid about his identity, he’s got the room to look after a  _ hundred _ stray metas,” Conner grunted. 

 

“Well, his money is looking after  _ these _ ones, so I’m not going to be the first one to tell him to calm down,” M’gann pointed out, tapping Conner’s wallet, which contained a discreet black credit card that covered all of their expenses. “Charlie, Liz, Harry and Eddie are all old enough to live on their own, anyway, with some financial support to set them up and a support network to help them learn about and control their powers.” None of the rescued metas particularly wanted to talk about their backgrounds, but it was clear that they didn’t have homes to go back to. When the Reach had captured people to experiment on, Static had said that they’d almost exclusively been runaways, homeless and orphans. The five metas rescued from the hidden lab were abandoned, alone and had more power than they really new what to do with, a dangerous combination without the right kind of support.

 

“What about the little one?” Conner asked, nodding towards the living room. 

 

“M’gann leaned in the living room door, where Raven and Kori were talking with Ace--or rather, as usual, Kori was chatting animatedly, Raven was responding in answers of no more than five words, and Ace was responding to direct questions with a soft, quiet “yes” or “no”. The girl had adamantly refused to take off the heavy, face-concealing helmet she was wearing; it  _ had _ to be uncomfortable, but according to the lab notes Blue Beetle had downloaded, mere eye contact with her caused tumours to grow rapidly in victims’ brains, bringing on insanity and death.

 

“How’re you girls getting along?” M’gann asked, drifting over the couch to sit down next to Ace.

 

“Oh, we’re going to be best friends, I know it!” Kori said exuberantly. “Is she going to live here with us? I’ll share my room if she is! I know Raven doesn’t like people in her space!”

 

“I don’t like  _ noisy _ people,” Raven said bluntly. “Quiet company would be nice.”

 

“Would like that, A… you know, you haven’t told us your name yet,” M’gann said. “Would you like to tell us your real name?”

 

“...Alice,” the girl said softly.

 

“How pretty!” Kori said brightly. “Humans often have a family name too! Have you a family name?” 

 

“...No,” Alice said, her voice shaking. “Not any more. My parents gave me to the lab because they were afraid of me. I don’t have a home. I can’t have one. I’m too dangerous.”

 

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” M’gann offered. “We aren’t exactly normal people here either, you know, Alice. You haven’t seen us yet, but you’re the only human in this room… well, Raven’s half human,” she added, smiling at the grey-skinned girl, who nodded calmly. “She’s a powerful psychic, as am I, and on top of that Raven is a highly skilled sorceress. Kori is one of the best empaths I’ve ever met! If there’s anybody who can help you with your powers, Alice, it’s us.”

 

“And you can have a home, too!” Kori said excitedly. “I… I don’t have my old family anymore, either,” she continued, her cheery voice wavering only for a second before returning full-force, “and neither does Raven, so M’gann, Conner and Gar took us in! There’s Victor, too, and he  _ does _ have a dad, but they don’t get along, so he lives here with us. So you’d get two new brothers and two new sisters!”

 

“Why?” Alice asked, her voice wavering again. “Why are you being so… so  _ nice _ ? You don’t know me, and I… I-I’ve killed people, you know…”

 

“We know,” M’gann said gently. She’d read the reports. She knew how many. She knew that it was in a lab, under the control of scientists who wanted to see what would happen. “You weren’t in control. But you can be now. You can learn to be, and not hurt anybody anymore.”

 

“So… so that’s why you want to help me?” Alice asked, as if scrambling for a logical thread in the conversation. “So I don’t kill anybody else?”

 

“We want to help you because you need help,” M’gann said firmly. “We want to help you because you  _ deserve _ to be helped. That’s all it is.”

 

“It sounds like nonsense,” Raven added. “You’re trying to figure out what it is that we want from you  _ really _ . But she means it. I… also got people killed, before  _ I  _ could control  _ my _ powers, but they took me in and helped me, just because they needed it. They really believe in that. And my powers could implode suns if I lose control, so if they could help  _ me _ , we could  _ definitely _ help you.”

 

“...What does ‘implode’ mean?” Alice asked.

 

“Like, explode, but the opposite!” Kori explained. “I’d kinda like to  _ see _ her implode a sun, but one without any inhabited planets around it, of course!”

 

Alice  _ giggled _ . It was like a victory song.

 

“To start with, that helmet looks  _ very _ uncomfortable,” M’gann said, putting a hand on the hemet’s smooth surface. “If you’ll let me, Alice, I’d like to explore your mind. Psychically, I mean. I should be able to learn more about your powers and some more comfortable ways to control them, okay?”

 

“It’s dangerous,” Alice said, immediately going grim again. 

 

“It’s what we do,” M’gann assured her. “Raven, pull me out if it looks like there’s any trouble, okay?”

 

“I will,” Raven promised, shifting into a more meditative sitting position and floating a little into the air as she did so. 

 

“Okay, then,” Alice said, visibly more relaxed with the idea of M’gann having a lifeline. “Okay. Do I need to do anything?”

 

“Just close your eyes,” M’gann said, “and listen to my voice…”

 

Alice’s mind was difficult to navigate, not because she had defenses up, but because it was  _ chaos. _ Light and sound was spiralling wildly in all directions, power bursting like fireworks. In the midst of it all was Alice, looking even younger than she already did, kneeling and curled up with her hands pressed to her ears and her eyes screwed shut.

 

“Oh, Alice…” M’gann breathed. “I’m so sorry. You’ve had to live with  _ this _ ?”

 

“I  _ have _ to keep it in,” Alice whimpered. She sounded barely grade-school age. “I can’t do weird things or, or, or else…!”

 

Memories rushed past like a tsunami.  _ “Stop that!” “You little freak!” “Why couldn’t you have been  _ normal?!”  _ “Just STOP!”  _ Angry voices intermixed with slaps, kicks,  _ hurt _ \--

 

“You’ve been repressing your power all your life,” M’gann realized, almost breathless from the pain. “But you can’t make it go away or stop any more than you can stop your heart from beating, Alice! You have to stop holding it back!”

 

“But… but…!” Alice cried. “I’ll hurt you! I hurt everybody!”

 

“I can protect myself, Alice!” M’gann called, steeling her own mental shields. “And I won’t hurt you! Stop fighting the power, Alice! Trying to stamp it down is what’s causing it pain! Let it  _ go _ !”

 

Alice  _ screamed _ , and the whirlwind of light and sound and  _ power _ became all the more deafening, swirling all around them like the inside of star, but…

 

...something was  _ odd _ . The power felt different. It wasn’t  _ psychic, _ it was…

 

“Alice!” M’gann yelled, boosting her mental voice as loud as she could while she thought frantically. “Say… umm… say…  _ wollip otni tac!” _

 

“ _ Wo… wolly…” _ Alice cried in confusion.

 

“Out loud, not just in here!” M’gann prompted her. “ _ Wollip otni tac! Wollip otni tac!” _

 

_ “WOLLIP OTNI TAC!”  _ Alice screamed, and the storm… calmed, somewhat. Enough that, outside of the psychic space, M’gann could hear meowing.

 

She pulled out of Alice’s head and saw that her couch pillows were gone, but Kori was cooing at several fluffy purple cats.

 

“So,” Raven said, calmly petting a cat that hopping from the couch into her lap. “You’re not a psychic, Alice.”

 

“Not a  _ meta _ either, exactly,” M’gann panted. “She’s homo magi. Alice, say…  _ temleh… ot… dlof...dnilb. Temleh ot dlofdnilb. _ ”

 

“ _ Temleh ot dlofnilb,” _ Alice said. The helmet melted and reformed into a much more comfy-looking blindfold. 

 

“That’s amazing, Alice!” Kori said happily. “You’re  _ magic _ !”

 

“Magic…?” Alice sniffed, reaching up to pat at the blindfold in wonder, and then wipe her cheeks, where the tears streaming down her face were no longer hidden behind her helmet. 

 

“Yes,” M’gann said, standing up. “I’m going to call my friend Zatanna. She actually just took on a student--maybe she’ll be interested in having another. She’ll help you learn to use your power safely so it doesn’t build up and lash out against you or anybody else, okay?”

 

“O… Okay…” Alice said, still rubbing her face in some awe, then running her hands through her hair, matted and horrible from being kept under the helmet without being properly washed. M’gann made a mental note to help the girl get a haircut and a long, comfortable bubble bath. Alice jumped and let out a little  _ eep _ of surprise when a cat with a floral pattern in its fur jumped into her lap and curled up.

 

“Are we keeping the cats, too?” Kori asked excitedly.

 

{ _ The Watchtower _ }

{ _ July 10, 16:48 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“Hmmm… I actually think Superboy would be a fine mentor for Eddie, since superhuman strength and durability are his main abilities, too,” Kaldur suggested. “Harry’s powers are very similar to Plastic Man’s, so we can ask him if he’d be interested in mentoring. Rocket may be able to help Charlie… maybe she can build him something like her equipment to help him focus his energy powers.”

 

“Liz is more of a problem,” Dick sighed, scrolling through the lab reports. “Manipulating metal is… something that Black Lightning and Static can do, sort of, with their electric powers, but she moves metal with her  _ mind _ .”

 

“Perhaps she should keep in touch with Miss Martian, since she also has telekinetic powers, even though they are not exclusive to metal,” Kaldur said. “And Alice…”

 

“ _ Homo magi _ , mistaken for a regular meta,” Dick mused. “Zee should be able to help her, but she said we’ll need to find a way to give her some proper medical checkups. She warned me that suppressing magical power… well, aside from lashing out, the way it does whenever she makes eye contact with people, when magic builds up in the body it can start tearing it apart. We’re lucky we found her in time.”

 

“It is a miracle that they were found at all,” Kaldur said lowly. “Somebody else was trying to steal them--trying to take advantage of the monster attacks on the cities, no doubt, while the Justice League was busy. It’s sheer luck that Bumblebee’s team was flying over the hidden lab at the time.”

 

“They’d been studying Alice for  _ five years _ , Kal,” Dick said, staring at the files on his screen. “They got the rest over the course of a year after the Reach left earth. Word got out about metas. What if there are other labs out there like this? Other places experimenting on people in case they’ve got the meta-gene?”

 

“No doubt,” Kaldur said grimly. “But we will find them, Nightwing. Somewhere in this research there might be a thread, some correspondence to a similar institution, and we will  _ find them _ . And until then…” He gestured at the Watchtower computers that they were using to dig through the stolen data. “We will keep looking. At least we have found five, and they are on their way to new homes and better lives.”

 

Dick nodded absentmindedly, scanning through documents. After a while, he said, “there isn’t a reliable way to test for the meta-gene yet. This place, the Reach… all they did was torture people to see if they’d manifest powers on the brink of death. I wish there was a better way.”

 

“You wish to test somebody for a meta-gene?” Kaldur asked, glancing over from his screen. 

 

“Trey,” Dick said. “Six sea monsters attacked, and somebody tried to kidnap a number of metas from a lab, and I don’t think those are a coincidence. I think you’re right--the monsters were a distraction, and so is cleaning up after them. What if the first one was also a distraction? What if there was another lab nearby-- _in_ _Happy Harbour_ , Kal, right on _our old doorstep_ \--and… no, the Team encountered Trey before the monster appeared,” he realized.

 

“But in attacking Mount Justice, and Trey being there too, are strange coincidences indeed, if coincidence is what they are,” Kaldur said, standing up. “I will contact Plastic Man and Rocket, and then let Miss Martian and Superboy know of our mentorship suggestions. I will also see who is available to do another sweep of Happy Harbour. Before, we looked only for people who had seen Trey and Ace and found nothing. This time, we will look for any sign that there was any such lab that has been recently destroyed or vacated. Will you be alright to continue searching these documents yourself?”

  
“Detective, remember? I’ll handle this,” Dick promised. “Gotham’ll get along without me for a little while. Also, Stephanie was insisting on a Mario Kart tournament in the name of  _ really  _ getting to know Trey when he came back in for lunch, and that girl takes her karting  _ very  _ seriously. Honestly, it was a relief to get called in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the DCAU, Ace is only ever stated to be a psychic, but I think a dangerously repressed homo magi feels like a good explanation for her actually being able to fully warp reality by the time she’s reaching the end of her life.
> 
> And yeah, all of the Royal Flush Gang’s personalities seem more benevolent here than they did in the cartoon. They were rescued by compassionate people here, not the Joker. I imagine that would cause a noticeable difference in a person’s disposition. 
> 
> By the way, there’s been a bit of sensitive content thus far, but as of the next chapter, there’s going to be specific content warnings on chapters that contain common serious triggers, and summaries in the bottom notes for anybody who wants to skip. Because all the fluffy family moments are me pre-emptively apologizing for how fucked up things are gonna get by the end of the fic. Enjoy!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trey talks to his siblings. The shit hits the fan.

{ _ Wayne Manor, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 11, 04:16 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

There was screaming. 

 

It was nighttime, and it was Gotham, so it took a minute for it to register for Cassandra that this was not a normal state of affairs, not in the hallway of Wayne Manor. It stopped quickly, but she’d already triangulated the source.

 

Trey’s room. Nightmare. Probably. There was a not insignificant possibility that it was ninjas. Cass ran to his door as fast and silently as she could, and, when she listened and didn’t hear any fighting, opted to knock on the door rather than break it down. 

 

Alfred had taught her about knocking. He knocked in a rhythm, so she always knew when it was him. Most people had a rhythm, even if they didn’t mean to. Hers was light and quick. She hoped it sounded like how it looked to dance. Trey had seen her dance--he said he’d heard about her dancing from Dick and asked to see, after lunch. He hadn’t danced, tired from walking Ace. He said he’d been away for so long because Ace was so big and needed a long walk, but that was a lie. He was upset, very upset, and trying to hide it. 

 

“C-come in,” Trey called hoarsely. Cass slowly pushed the door open, peering into the room and giving a little wave when she locked eyes with Trey. He tried to smile and wave back, but grief was singing in every line of his body. 

 

“Can I… sit?” Cass asked, pointing at the bed. 

 

“Sure,” Trey said, shifting and patting the bed next to him, on the side where Ace wasn’t snuggled up against his master like a big, friendly blanket. Cass sat down and put an arm around her brother’s slightly shaking shoulders. He was sweating, but she didn’t mind. She’d had so much blood on her hands that a little sweat didn’t even register. He was surprised by the hug, but not guarded, not startled, not uncomfortable--in fact, he put his arm around her, hugging her back. He’d known physical affection and comfort growing up. That was nice to know. His childhood hadn’t been like hers. 

 

“So, uh, did I wake you, or does everybody in this house have nightmares at unholy hours of the night?” Trey said weakly, his voice a thin attempt at jovial.

 

Upset and trying to hide it. His MO. Everybody in this family’s MO. 

 

Cass concentrated. Words were difficult, but Trey couldn’t sign, so words it would have to be. “Everybody… has nightmares,” she settled on. She liked it. It wasn’t a lie. She didn’t want to lie to Trey. He was family. She didn’t like lying to him now, but she could see how overwhelmed he was, already struggling to keep from breaking apart. All the vigilantism would be… a lot.

 

“What do you have nightmares about?” he asked. “If it’s okay for me to ask. If not, it’s cool. It’s fine.”

 

This was difficult. Cass didn’t mind answering. Sharing past experiences with loved ones was a way of working through trauma, Leslie said, and Leslie was kind and comforting and healing. Sharing her past experiences was a good way of telling which ones were  _ wrong _ , too, though most of them were. It was upsetting, sometimes, to see shock and upset crack across people she loved when she told them something she hadn’t known was upsetting, had thought of as a mundane part of growing up.

 

But it was good to feel justified in her rage, her upset at what she had done--what she had been  _ led _ to do.  _ She _ had not betrayed David Cain.  _ He _ had failed  _ her _ .

 

Ah. There was an answer that wasn’t a lie. “Father,” she said. “Father before Dad.” Different words that meant the same thing were confusing, at first, but words had little nuances that could make big differences. “He wanted… to make me strong.” Trey slept in sweat pants; she favoured an anime t-shirt that Steph had given her and comfy shorts she’d stolen from Dick, which had a nice drawstring to keep them up and were big and soft. Both of their scar collections were well-displayed. She pointed at some gunshot wounds on her leg. “Taught me… that when you are hurt… to do nothing is strong. It’s a lie,” she assured him. “When you are hurt, you must tell somebody. Important rule.” It was one of the first rules she’d been given after moving into the Manor. One of the first things Bruce had taught her to say, when he’d realized that she would act as if she wasn’t injured, was  _ it hurts _ and to point to the injury. Before, she’d be punished for showing hurt; now… well, Bruce never punished her for anything, not purposefully, but he and Dick both got so  _ sad _ when they found out she was hurt, and that was a kind of punishment itself. “Tell somebody,” she advised Trey, “and treat the wound. Very important.”

 

“Very wise,” Trey said, patting her shoulder with a sigh. He was sad when he looked at her scars, but not horrified. Of course, he had plenty of his own. Ace leaned across Trey and licked her cheek. She giggled, leaning over to pet him. Ace was so  _ friendly _ . He radiated love and compassion, and simple, straightforward versions of those emotions at that, nothing as complicated as people. Why had they never gotten a dog before? Dogs were  _ wonderful. _

 

“Mine aren’t memories,” Trey said eventually. “They can’t be. I mean…” He sighed. “I… saw Gotham,” he said slowly, “and in an instant, it was gone. Nothing left but a crater. But Gotham’s still out there, safe and sound,” he continued, waving a hand at the window. “So it’s… nothing. Right?”

 

“Gotham is not safe,” Cass corrected him.

 

Trey laughed. “Okay, yeah, from what I’m hearing,” he chuckled. “But… I dunno. Probably some shrink would just tell me I’ve got a whopping case of fear of loss thanks to the whole amnesia thing. It’s just a nightmare, that’s all.”

 

“Sounded scary,” Cass said, letting Ace go to hug him again. “Not nothing.”

 

“It’s okay,” Trey said, hugging her back. “Don’t worry. It’s just a nightmare. It’s not going to happen. It’s  _ not _ .”

 

Cass decided not to bring up how scared he seemed of nothing. Upset and trying to hide it. 

 

It had taken her a long time to get into the habit of sharing her wounds, too.

  
  


{ _ Wayne Manor, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 11, 13:06 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“So, do you have nightmares too?” Trey asked conversationally. He’d asked Dick to come along with him today while he walked Ace among the Manor grounds. Apparently, he’d already picked out a favourite route, following the path around the lake without looking around much. “I mean, I’ve been having nightmares, and either Bruce or Cass is always already up, and I’m not convinced that Alfred sleeps at  _ all _ …”

 

“I don’t have nightmares much anymore, no, but I had a  _ ton _ when I first got here,” Dick said. “I mean, it was right after my family died, so, y’know, sleeping was not easy to do. Mine have gotten a lot better, but yeah, Bruce’s have always been pretty bad. I’m hoping Cass’ will get better the longer she spends here.”

 

“Are hers about her old dad? Should I ask that without her here? I mean, she was pretty open when we had 4am nightmare chat, but maybe that’s not daytime talk, I dunno…” Trey trailed off, mumbling. 

 

“Some things are very much 4am only,” Dick agreed, marvelling inwardly. Cass wasn’t secretive at all, not around people she trusted, and apparently that now included Trey. “But yeah. Mostly to do with her previous dad. What’re yours about?”

 

“Fear of loss, probably,” Trey said, shrugging. Dick recognized the calculated nonchalance. “Or possibly sex. It’s always one or the other right?”

 

“Except for when it’s about deep-seated traumas that our conscious mind never fully processed?” Dick prodded, aiming for lighthearted and jokey in case that would make the heavy subject any easier. “C’mon, the rest of the family has family-related trauma nightmares, you can’t be the only exception! They could even be the key to your memories, y’know?”

 

“Yeah, but if it is… maybe I shouldn’t remember,” Trey said, accepting the stick that Ace had run back to him with and throwing it. “The nightmares are horrible enough, if what  _ really  _ happened was bad enough to wipe my memories… maybe it’s a good thing I don’t remember, right?”

 

“Trey… we’ve all got stuff we wish we could forget,” Dick said, the crack of his family’s bones ringing in his ears, the sight of Jason’s dead face burning behind his eyes, “but that doesn’t mean that’s the right thing for us, or even  _ possible _ . I mean, you’re having nightmares about it, so clearly some part of you remembers. If you don’t find out what it is, you can’t move past it or begin to deal with it.”

 

“Ugh, how did I wind up with a family full of therapists?” Trey said, throwing his hands up theatrically. “First Cass, now you, Bruce is actually  _ building _ a mental health facility…”

 

“You wound up with a family full of traumatized people who spend a lot of time with therapists,” Dick said, patting Trey’s shoulder sympathetically. “Sorry you don’t have a nice, stable, normal household to spend your amnesia in.”

 

“I dunno… might be weirder trying to get normal people to understand how fucked up I’m feeling,” Trey mumbled. “All of you just seem to  _ get it. _ Which is good, I guess, in its own way.” Ace returned with the stick again, and Trey took it and threw it again. “Can I ask you a personal question? You don’t have to answer.”

 

“Shoot,” Dick offered, managing to scratch Ace’s ears before the dog took off after the stick. 

 

“How do you… shit, this sounds awful… how do you deal with being the one who survived?” Trey asked quietly, rubbing the back of his neck. “If I… maybe I’m having these nightmares because I lost people. If I’m alive, when they’re not… how do you cope with that?”

 

_ Survivor’s guilt? What are his nightmares  _ about? “It took a long time to come to terms with surviving when my family didn’t out of… sheer timing, really,” he admitted. “What happened to my family was horrible and undeserved and… really, all I can do is try to live a life that they’d be proud of. To be worth it. I don’t know. Some days I wonder if that’s even possible. But what else can I do, right?”

 

“You never wanted… I dunno, revenge?” Trey asked. 

 

Dick thought about it. Thought about finally cornering his family’s murderer. Thought about how  _ close _ he came to being a murderer itself… if it wasn’t for Bruce. 

 

“Thought about it,” Dick said, waving at the Manor and grounds. “Thought about all the things I like better than being in jail forever, like the guy who murdered my family. Justice happened. I don’t know if it’s enough, but I don’t think revenge would’ve made it any better. At least he can’t hurt anybody else now, and I’ve got a new family now that I like well enough.” He ruffled Trey’s hair, grinning as the other guy batted his hand way and rolled his eyes. “Time, Trey,” Dick said softly. “That’s all I know works for sure. Time. You’re safe. You have all the time you need.”

 

“Yeah,” Trey said, watching Ace run back to them. “Thanks, Dick.”

 

“Any time, little brother,” Dick promised.

 

“I think we’re the same age, you know. And I’m definitely taller than you.”

 

“Ssssshh. I am the alpha brother in this house. Deal with  _ that _ .”

  
  


{ _ Drake Household, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 11, 20:32 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“Holy shit,” Steph said, dropping her pen on her physics homework. “That’s pretty early in the night, isn’t it?”

 

Tim looked up and followed her gaze out of the window. The sun had barely set, but the Batsignal was clearly visible against the heavy clouds. “How long has that been up there?” he said frantically, running for his closet. He always kept things neat and hung up his own laundry to give the maids no reason to spend much time in his room, let alone find the spare Robin costume and equipment hidden at the very back of the closet. Steph reached for her backpack and the spare Spoiler costume hidden at the bottom. 

 

“I just saw it go up, pretty much the second it was dark enough,” Steph said, running off into the bathroom with her bag. Tim changed quickly, slipping the comm into his ear first.

 

“Robin to Batman,” he said.

 

“ _ Copy, _ ” Batman said after a moment. “ _ So you’ve seen the signal? _ ”

 

“Spoiler and I are suiting up and can be on our way to join you in three minutes,” Tim said, his voice beginning to slip into the slightly rougher accent he cultivated as Robin, spitting out his vowels and slipping consonants like a kid from Crime Alley instead of Summerville. 

 

“ _ Be at the roof of the Wayne building overlooking the police headquarters in fifteen. _ ”

 

“Copy,” Robin said, clicking his utility belt on and pressing the button to summon his motorbike. They were too far out from any high-rises to grapple from. 

 

They made it to the Wayne building in twelve minutes, but Batman was already there, narrow-eyed and tight-lipped as he looked down at the police headquarters. “No sign of Gordon,” he said shortly. “It’s Bullock.”

 

“What? I thought he hates you,” Spoiler said in surprise. “Why would  _ he _ light up the Batsignal?”

 

“Maybe something’s happened to Gordon,” Robin said as Batman grappled down to the rooftop. They followed, landing lightly behind the heavy shadow of the bat.

 

“Bullock,” Batman said. “What’s happened to Gordon?”

 

“Jesus, how the fuck did you--never mind,” Bullock said, shaking his head and pulling his cigarette out of his mouth. “We don’t know. He’s missin’.”

 

“What happened?” Batman repeated.

 

“Right, fuck… ‘bout half an hour ago, we got multiple calls from an apartment buildin’ in Burnside, sayin’ they heard gunfire,” Bullock said, dropping his only half-finished cigarette, grinding it out and lighting a new one. There were already several more on the ground. Lighting and replacing cigarettes was a level of nervous action Robin hadn’t seen from Bullock before. “Dispatch sent it up and Montoya clocked that it was the buildin’ the Commish’s daughter lives in. We headed out to check it out and spotted the Commish’s car outside, and worse, the fla that got shot up was Babs’, and, well…” He pulled a thick sheaf of photographs out of his pocket and thrust them at Batman. “This is the shit we found inside.”

 

Robin’s faint, nagging sense of dread only intensified at Batman leafed through the photographs, the already thin line of his lips all but disappearing as he did so. He held the photographs out to Robin, who took them and began to go through them, with Spoiler leaning in to see. His attempts to stay clinical, to focus on gleaning important clues, were almost immediately shattered.

 

It was Barbara’s apartment. He’d been there a handful of times, when picking up tech or needing somewhere to catch his breath after a fight nearby, but he barely recognized it in the state it was in . The coffee table was broken, a sofa overturned, pictures and ornaments smashed, and even more noticeable than the bullet holes in the walls were the words scrawled in dripping red, shading to brown, on every flat surface. One word. Barely even a word, really.

 

HA  _ HA _ HA HA  **HA** HA  **_HA HA_ ** _ HA _ HA

 

“Robin, Spoiler, take these back to the Batcave  _ now _ and stay there,” Batman ordered. “Do not separate. Do not deviate. If you see anything, inform me and then keep moving, do  _ not _ stop to get a better look. Batman to cave,” he said, raising a hand to his comm. “Robin and Spoiler are on their way back. Nightwing, come meet them to escort them all the way back. Joker’s out tonight and I’m not taking any chances,” he said when Spoiler opened her mouth indignantly. “I’m going to the crime scene. This is now top priority.”

 

“ _ Joker’s out? Shit, what happened _ ?” Nightwing said in concern.

 

“Robin and Spoiler will tell you when back at the cave,” Batman said sharply. Robin wince. Barbara was Nightwing’s best friend, and he was prone to doing dangerous things when his friends were in danger. “Do  _ not _ make a move until I tell you to, do you understand?”

 

“ _ Understood, _ ” Dick said, sounding frustrated but not pushing it. “ _ I’m en route to collect Robin and Spoiler now _ .” 

 

Of course. When it came to Joker, they wouldn’t take any chances with Robin, not anymore.

 

“We don’t know how long the Joker’s been out,” Bullock said, looking enraged. “Best guess is he got swapped during the prisoner transfer to New Arkham. Somebody else has been sittin’ in his cell, all dolled up in facepaint and cacklin’. When I find out who the  _ fuck _ let him out…”

 

“First we find Joker,” Batman said, grappling away.

 

“Nice of him to leave  _ us _ responsible for telling Dick that the Joker’s got Babs,” Spoiler muttered as she and Robin followed suit, heading in the opposite direction, towards Wayne Manor. 

 

Tim didn’t want to think of Dick’s face when they told him, any more than he wanted to think about Barbara and Commissioner Gordon at the clown’s renowned lack of mercy. He’d never been face-to-face with the Joker himself, but the bloodied, burned uniform of Jason Todd that stood in the Batcave told enough of a story. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray, butterfly effect. What does the Joker do when he’s not releasing young metahumans and getting them geared up to attack Vegas? Something he apparently never did in the DCAU (that movie most DEFINITELY does not count, holy shit). Also, I know this is largely set in the Young Justice timeline, but I want you to know I have the mental image of Mark Hamill’s DCAU Joker in mind at all times, rather than… whatever Brent Spiner was up to in Young Justice. I mean, that’s what we all think of first anyway, right?


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbara is found. None of this is funny.

 

{ _ Batcave, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 11, 21:17 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

The photographs Bullock had given them were lying on the floor where Dick had dropped them, and Dick himself was in a full-blown argument with Alfred, who was physically blocking the connecting path to where the motorbikes were parked. Tim kept glancing nervously upwards, wondering if the ringing shouting was audible from the house above.

 

“ _ Bruce  _ shouldn’t be facing that monster alone, and you know it!” Dick yelled. “And if the Joker’s out there, Ja--Red Hood will hear about it, and he’ll be out, too! Bruce is going to  _ need _ backup!”

 

“Every one of you who goes out is a potential target that the Joker may aim to use against Batman,” Alfred said sharply.

 

“ _ He’s already got Barbara _ !” Dick shouted. “Get out of my damn way, Alfred!”

 

“Batman  _ will _ inform us if he needs backup--”

 

“Not if it’s  _ Joker _ !”

 

“Y’know, I think Dick’s right,” Steph whispered to Tim. “Big B’s gonna need all the backup he can get. I think we should get out there.”

 

“Alfred’s never gonna let us out of here,” Tim whispered back.

 

“We take off while he’s fighting with Dick, then he  _ has _ to let Dick go to find us, right?” Steph whispered back. “He’s not gonna let  _ you _ go out while Joker’s around, especially, so we’ve gotta sneak  _ now _ \--”

 

“And whatever you are whispering about, Miss Brown,” Alfred suddenly said icily, “but I will thank both you and Master Tim to remain within my line of sight--”

 

A door suddenly slammed. They all whirled, and for a fraction of a second, Tim thought Trey had heard them and found the clock, but then he realized that the slam had come from the spare Batgirl changing room, and Batgirl was walking out.

 

“Wh-- _ Cass _ ?!” Steph yelped.

 

“Going out,” Cass said firmly. “Getting Babs. Protect secret. Stop Joker.” She raised her chin, firmly meeting Alfred’s gaze. “Can’t stop me,” she pointed out.

 

“I… cannot, but please, think about this, Miss Cassandra,” Alfred said weakly. “You will have to fight, and fight a  _ monster _ .”

 

“Alfred’s right, Cass,” Dick said uneasily. “The Joker… you’ve never seen anything like him. And just getting  _ near _ him messes up Martians, so the way you read people, he’s gonna be…”

 

“Kick his ass,” Cass declared, striding between him and Alfred pointedly, as if daring them to try and restrain her. “Stop laughing. You coming?”

 

“Yep,” Steph declared immediately, pulling her Spoiler hood back up. “You coming, Tim?”

 

“Sorry, Alfred, but I’m gonna go too,” Tim said. “Hey, uh… what’re you gonna tell Trey about where everybody went?”

 

“He retired early,” Alfred said stiffly. “His sleep has been quite disrupted. When I attempted to check on him, Ace ran to the door and pushed it shut, refusing entry. No doubt he is more effective than I am at ensuring that his charge gets some sleep. I am sure I shall tell him  _ something _ if required. Do not force me to explain away any deaths in the family, Master Dick,” he said, glaring at Nightwing.

 

“None of  _ us _ are gonna die,” Dick growled, talking off after his sister. “Motorbikes are on the left, Cass!”

 

“Batgirl!” Cassandra shouted over her shoulder.

  
  


{ _???????, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 11, 22:45 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

Barbara wasn’t sure what was worse; the agonizing pain in her upper half, or the terrifying  _ nothing  _ in her lower half.

 

She could  _ see _ the wrong angles of her legs. She could see her  _ kneecap _ sticking out of her left leg. But she couldn’t feel a damn thing.

 

She could bear up under pain, breathing through using the techniques that Batman and Nightwing had taught her. She could tell herself that she’d had worse cramps, which whether true or not never failed to give her a burst of ridiculous bravado. But the  _ nothing  _ was  _ scaring  _ her, throwing her off-balance and letting the pain swamp her.

 

_ Get it together, Babs! Get it together before he beats you to death and blows you up, just like Jason! _

 

Amidst the wild cackling as the Joker beat her bloody, she could faintly hear her dad shouting. He was crying, sobbing,  _ begging _ the Joker to stop before he killed her.

 

The Joker caught her under the jaw with the crowbar, rolling her over, filling her mouth with the taste of blood and pain. She stared into bloodshot green eyes for a long time before realizing they were her own. 

 

It was a funhouse mirror, its warped surface blowing up her head bigger than her body.  _ I look awful,  _ she thought, staring at her horrible black eyes, the blood streaking her face from split brows and cheeks and lips.  _ Heh _ , she thought, giggling a little in a delerium of pain that only got worse as her broken ribs jarred.  _ All that bruising sorta looks like my mask… _

 

_ And why did you put on that mask?  _ Something within her asked.  _ To protect your dad! So get it together and save him,  _ BATGIRL!

 

The Joker had attacked them at home, when she was just a college student spending time with her dad. The shotgun blast that had torn through her door and her stomach had twisted the world into frightening chaos that she’d been reacting to like an ordinary college girl--frightened, lost,  _ helpless _ . The mere  _ thought _ of Batgirl twisted everything back like a reverse kaleidoscope, bringing the world back into focus. 

 

Her dad was in a cage that was so short that he was forced to kneel. It had no proper lock, instead being chained and padlocked shut. He had been stripped to his underwear. His glasses were missing.

 

She’d also been stripped to her underwear. She wasn’t sure when that had happened. But if she was still in her underwear, she had a chance. 

 

She breathed, pulling her arms up to her chest, trying to curl up as the Joker monologued about something. It sounded like he was rambling about what jokes really were. It wasn’t really important. What was important was that he wasn’t paying much attention to her. Her core muscles imploded in agony as she tried to curl, her legs unresponsive. She breathed through the pain, focusing on taking stock. One arm was broken and she couldn’t move all the fingers. But she had one good hand. She wasn’t down yet.

 

The Joker’s eyes were fixed on her father as the clown twirled his crowbar. She risked slipping a hand into her bra. She felt the warm, crinkled paper of her emergency twenty, fighting the mental image of trying to just get a taxi home in this state because laughing hurt.  _ Wrong kind of emergency.  _ She teetered dangerously close to panic when she felt nothing else--

 

_ No. There it is. Snagged on the end of the wire. Breathe.  _

 

She pressed her emergency signal twice, just as the Joker slammed the crowbar back into her ribs with a cackle. She was vaguely surprised to feel something  _ crack _ . She hadn’t thought there was anything left to break. 

 

_ Pressed it twice, _ she told herself, letting out a sob because it made the clown stop to laugh proudly.  _ Bats and Team. Just gotta hold out until  _ somebody  _ gets here. _

 

The Joker raked at her guts with the sharp end of the crowbar. She couldn’t contain a scream of agony as she felt things  _ tear _ . 

 

_ Waiting for rescue: potentially fatal. Need something to do in the meantime.  _ Anything.

 

The Joker grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head up. She screamed again, but took finally having an elevated view as a chance to look around. Anything to focus on but the  _ pain. _

 

She recognized the padlock on her dad’s cage. It was cheap, the sort that was easy to pick, not that she was in the condition with only one hand. It was also easy to smash, with a weapon.  _ I don’t have a weapon, though. Where do I get a weapon _ ?

 

Whatever the Joker was talking about now, he was trailing the crowbar down her cheek while he did it.

 

_ Okay. Crowbar. I’m not strong enough to swing it.  _ She looked at her dad, reaching desperately through the bars of the cage.  _ Dad might be strong enough, if I can get it to him.  _

 

_ He will be strong enough. My life depends on it. _

 

_ Okay. Love it when a plan comes together. Get the crowbar from Joker to dad. That’s not step one. Step one is get the crowbar away from Joker.  _

 

_ Not strong enough to wrestle it away from him. Make him drop it. _

 

She clawed at the hand holding her up by the hair. He just cackled, slamming her into the mirror so hard that it shattered.

 

_ Hurts. But it’ll do _ .

 

The Joker dropped her amidst the broken glass, speckling her with a further layer of pain. She breathed, scrabbling for a piece that was big and sharp enough. When she found it, she didn’t hesitate. There wasn’t time. She stabbed the Joker’s ankle as hard as she could, aiming for the achilles tendon.

 

He yelped, stomping at her hand, but didn’t drop the crowbar. So she stabbed the other ankle. 

 

“Now, that’s just  _ naughty _ !” the Joker snapped, tucking the crowbar under one arm as he grabbed her by the neck with both hands, dragging her up in a choking grip.

 

_ Didn’t drop it, _ she thought, struggling to breathe.  _ But I can work with this. _

 

The Joker yanked her up so they were nose-to-nose. She could practically  _ feel _ the Joker’s rotten breath congealing on her skin. She’d never in her life wanted to be this close to him, especially not his  _ eyes. _

 

But the crowbar was pressed against her arm, and the Joker’s back was to her father. In the first stroke of luck all night, the blunt end was facing her. She shouldered it as hard as she could, forcing it under the Joker’s arm. It dropped to the ground in front of her father.

 

“Naughty, naughty!” the Joker screeched as he swung her around, throwing her into the cage. The pain was  _ overwhelming _ .

 

She passed out to the sound of her dad screaming her name.

  
  


{ _ Abandoned Amusement Mile, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 11, 22:55 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

After all of their fruitless searching,  _ finally _ , an emergency signal had come through. All of them had turned to chase it, finding themselves in the ruins of an old carnival on the outskirts of Gotham.  _ Because of course this is where he’d hole up, _ Stephanie thought, trying not to think of how many horror movies took place in places like this.  _ Oh god, I’m not a virgin, I’m even  _ blonde…

 

“BARBARA!”

 

“That’s the Commissioner!” Robin yelled. “He’s still alive!”

 

“Sounds like Babs won’t be if we don’t  _ move _ !” Nightwing shouted frantically, barrelling down the deserted Amusement Mile without giving a thought to potential traps. 

 

Surprisingly, there were none.  _ The Joker wanted us to see _ , Spoiler had time to think before catching sight of the Clown Prince of Crime himself. 

 

The Joker was holding up an unconscious and badly bloodied Barbara by an arm around her neck, a gun pressed to her head. She had been stripped to her underwear, and so had Jim Gordon, who was standing in front of some kind of cage that went up to approximately hip-height. The Commissioner was holding a bloody crowbar in his shaking hands.  _ That blood… was that what the Joker was beating Barbara with? _ Spoiler wondered vaguely. She heard Robin give a choked gagging sound and Nightwing a wordless scream of fury. Cass actually stumbled when she laid eyes on the Joker, something Steph had never expected the infinitely graceful girl to be capable of.  _ I wonder if it’s… the same one…? _

 

Batman suddenly leapt over a crumbling food stand,  _ roaring _ with a depth of rage rarely heard even from him as he flung three batarangs that buried themselves deep into the Joker’s exposed forearm. The clown cackled wildly as either the shock or pain caused him to drop Barbara, firing on Batman instead.

 

Two of the shots struck, making Batman grunt. There was no way the handgun was powerful enough to penetrate his body armour, but Cass had either forgotten that or had simply had enough. “STOP!” she screamed as she landed a flying kick that, from the sound of it, broke the Joker’s wrist.

 

“Oooh, Batsy… bringing  _ all _ the baby bats out to play?” the Joker crooned even as he stumbled backwards, clutching his hand. “But I hadn’t even sent your invitation! Rude, rude,  _ rude… _ ”

 

“GRAB THE GORDONS AND  _ MOVE _ !” Batman bellowed as the Joker pulled a bag out of his jacket, spilling what looked like marbles as he did. 

 

Robin and Spoiler both got their arms around a struggling and protesting Jim Gordon just as two of the rolling marbles collided, exploding with enough force to blow the three of them off their feet.

 

“BARBARA!” Commissioner Gordon screamed, struggling back to his feet as more explosions went off. 

 

“Got her!” Nightwing yelled as he went tumbling past, protectively curled around Barbara. “Let’s go!”

 

Robin and Spoiler went back to supporting Jim between them so that the badly shaking man could run, tearing off down the mile as, behind them, there were yet more explosions.

 

“ _ Batgirl, GO!” _ they heard Batman demand over the comm.

 

“ _ Quinn! _ ” was Cass’ only response, followed by her comm picking up the faint but distinct sound of the giggling of the Joker’s right-hand woman.

 

“Should we get them some backup?” Spoiler said, looking back uncertainly.

 

“Batgirl’s more than a match for Quinn, and Batman hasn’t lost to the Joker yet,” Nightwing said tightly. “We need to take B--the Commissioner and his daughter to hospital,  _ now _ .”

 

“We came on motorbikes,” Robin pointed out as they reached the vehicles in question. 

 

“Already summoned the Batmobile,” Nightwing said, lying Barbara down on the ground and starting to pull bandages and splints out. “Should be here in two minutes. Help me splint her injuries. Dammit, I wish I didn’t have to move her…”

 

“Get her to the hospital in the car, I can hang on on the back of a bike,” Gordon said hoarsely, helping lay out splints for one of Barbara’s broken legs. “He… didn’t really hurt me, he just… wanted me to watch…”

 

“Batman will get him,” Robin assured him. “He always gets the Joker. He’ll put that clown back behind bars before anybody else.”

  
Stephanie really,  _ really  _ didn’t like the sad look the Commissioner gave Robin. “I hope so, son,” he said softly, “I truly hope so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What up guess who received life from her new laptop charger and the trailer for Young Justice season 3? Guess who’s HYPED about Cass being confirmed for Birds of Prey and thinks Shazam looks pretty on the money? Guess who is willing to give a shit about the CW again just to support Batwoman? Guess who finds the Titans trailer fucking hilarious? God I hope the Harley Quinn and Swamp Thing shows will be good. I mean, I’d pay for the streaming service just for Young Justice, and the fuckers probably KNOW that, but I’d like to get more than just that for my money.
> 
> There’s a lot of reasons I am repelled by The Killing Joke, predominantly the way it handled Barbara (how did the movie manage to make that WORSE) and the kind of gross fanboys who think it’s the pinnacle of all comics because it’s so Dark and Edgy and think the best part of the comic is the Joker’s philosophizing (protip: anybody who finds the Joker #relatable, or think the Joker and Harley are a good relationship, is somebody you shoudl RUN from). But there are also reasons I felt compelled to write it--Oracle’s one of my favourite superheroes, and her friendship with Steph during the latter’s tenure as Batgirl is one of my favourite mentor-student relationships in all of comics ever, and I have yet to forgive DC for retconning all of that away. And the butterfly effect I mentioned before, of this happening when it didn’t originally happen in Terry’s history, hurting somebody who’s very important to him, was interesting to me. And I guess I felt compelled to “fix”, a little, quite how shitty it is to Barbara. I still think an ideal version would her being hurt because she’s Batgirl, not specifically to hurt her dad, but at least here she gets the opportunity to fight back and contribute to her own rescue and that of her dad.
> 
> Yes, I know she was naked when she was found in the comic. Yes, I know sexual assault was implied. No, I am not going there, because I don’t want to.
> 
> There’ll be another new chapter next week, because I’m excited about enough of DC’s announcements, and then I’ll go back to biweekly posting :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody likes Gotham much. The Joker is a very big reason for this.

{ _ Gotham _ }

{ _ July 11, 23:01 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“Team to Batgirl, come in,” Lightning said as soon as she stepped out of the zeta tube. “Nighting, Robin, Spoiler, come in.”

 

“ _ Nightwing _ ,” a voice finally responded. 

 

“This is Lightning,” the teenager said, glancing back at the zeta tube as the other Team member she’d been hanging out with filed out of the tube one by one. “I just arrived in Gotham with Arrowette, Speedy and 13. We got an emergency signal from Batgirl, but she hasn’t answered…”

 

“ _ I’ve got her. Taking her to hospital now. _ ”

 

“Do you still need backup?” Lightning asked, both disappointed that maybe she’d charged up for nothing and kinda relieved that she wasn’t gonna have to fight any of the kind of villains she’d heard of running around Gotham. They were  _ freaks _ in Gotham. 

 

“ _ No. Actually, you’d better get out of here. Joker’s on the loose. _ ”

 

“I’m out,” Arrowette immediately announced, spinning on her heel and walking back into the zeta tube. “I’ve heard  _ things _ about that clown from Spoiler, and  _ no _ .”

 

“ _ Thanks for responding, _ ” Nightwing added. “ _ Who’s the on-shift leader? Kaldur? _ ”

 

“Guardian’s taking a shift,” Lightning said, giving an exasperated look to Speedy, who’d drawn his bow and was looking around as if expecting the Joker to jump on him out of a shadow. 13 followed Arrowette through the tube as fast as she could.

 

“ _ Let him know I’ll deliver a situation update as soon as I can _ .”

 

“Thanks,” Lightning said. “Hey… is she gonna be okay?” Batgirl had come in to lead sparring a few times, and she was a  _ boss _ , but a nice one. The thought of  _ her _ getting hurt badly enough to need a hospital was… frightening.

 

“ _ I’ll let you know as soon as I do _ .”

 

“Well, thanks for being as terrifyingly vague as possible,” Lightning grumbled as soon as she’d switched off her comm. “You going or what?”

 

“Ladies first,” Speedy said, waving a hand at the tube. 

 

“Dude,  _ I’m _ the one with superpowers,  _ and _ Guardian made me leader for this mission,” Lightning said smugly. “So get your human ass through that zeta tube before a crocodile eats it.”

 

“Wait, is that something that happens in Gotham?” Speedy said uneasily, heading into the tube entrance. 

 

When she followed him through, heading to the Watchtower to debrief, she would’ve expected it to be mostly empty, but instead it was bustling. “Is it more sea monsters?” she asked, making a beeline for her sister.

 

“No, some kind of Russian signal got broadcast on League frequencies,” Thunder said. “Translated, it seems to be some kind of help signal from a facility that was most  _ definitely _ not trying to contact the League, ‘cause it said the ‘test subjects’ escaped.”

 

“Thunder!” Dad called-- _ He’s Black Lightning and the Chair right now, not Dad _ , Lightning reminded herself. “You’re in beta with Vixen, Vigilante and Rocket. You ready to go?”

 

“Yes, sir!” Thunder reported, patting Lightning on the shoulder. “Hang in there. How was Gotham?”

 

“All I saw was a dark alley that smelled like a urine sample,” Lightning grumbled, “and  _ not _ one that’s gonna pass.”

 

“Yeah, sounds like Gotham,” Thunder said, jogging off to join her team. 

  
  
  


{ _ Wayne Manor, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 12, 02:04 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

It took all of Alfred’s decades of finely honing his poker face to not jump a mile when he heard a sleepy “hey, Al” over his shoulder as he was closing the study door.

 

“Hello, Master Trey,” he said calmly as he turned around. “Whatever are you doing up at this hour?”

 

“Nightmare,” Trey yawned, rubbing his hair out of his eyes in a way that was heartbreakingly reminiscent of his father. “What’re  _ you _ doing up?”

 

“I was taking a phone call,” Alfred lied smoothly. “I hoped to minimize noise by speaking in the study. Would a glass of water be of some help, Master Trey? Or perhaps some cocoa?”

 

“Dick did tell me to try the cocoa,” Trey said with a halfhearted smile. Ace came running down the hall, wuffing gently as he nuzzled Trey’s hand. “Sorry, boy. No cocoa for dogs.”

 

“Do you recall any of the nightmare, Master Trey?” Alfred asked, leading Trey along the dark hallways to the kitchen.

 

“People keep asking me that in case it’s my memories, but it’s not,” Trey grumbled. “I mean, every time I see--I see Gotham destroyed, and, and, and Bruce  _ dead _ , and it was scary as hell but obviously that hasn’t  _ happened _ yet, right?”

 

“ _ Definitely _ cocoa,” Alfred mused as he flicked on the kitchen lights and went to fill the kettle. “Even if they are not real, they certainly sound  _ frightening _ . No wonder your sleep has been so disrupted.”

 

“Yeah, but…” Trey slumped in a chair at the table, leaning down to scratch Ace’s ears. “It’s the same thing  _ every night _ . You’d think I’d… I dunno, get used to it or get  _ over _ it or something…”

 

“Your mind is using such images to communicate a less literal fear,” Alfred advised him as he prepared mugs while the kettle boiled, “and clearly, you are not over  _ that _ . My amateur but experienced guess would be that the destruction of Gotham represents your fear of your unknown amnesia--the loss of the world around you. Master Bruce’s death represents your fear of losing the new family that you have now. Both of these are quite reasonable fears, and only time will assuage them, I’m afraid, barring us determining how you came to lose your memories and a concrete method of preventing it.”

 

“...I hardly know Bruce,” Trey mumbled. “I hardly know  _ any _ of you.”

 

“But we accept you as family, Master Trey,” Alfred said, deftly flipping off the kettle the moment before it started to scream and mixing the cocoa. Not that there was anybody sleeping in the house for it to wake, but it was a good habit to have. “And we hope that you will come to feel the same in time.”

 

As soon as he put a mug of cocoa down on the table, Trey wrapped his hands around it, sighing at the warmth. Alfred made a mental note to check on the heating in the young man’s room, though it would be unsurprising if Trey was experiencing chills unrelated to temperature. “Wow, you must do a  _ lot _ of 2am therapy in this family,” Trey said wryly.

 

“It is a wonder any of us ever get any sleep at all,” Alfred said, putting down his own mug and pulling a flask out of his pocket to add in a generous tot of whisky. After what had happened to the Gordons, and with the Joker still on the loose, he felt it justified. “Don’t ask until we know whether or not you’re over 21, young man.”

 

Trey gave a snort, then moaned happily as he sipped the cocoa. “Dick was right. This is  _ good _ .”

 

“Happy to be of service, Master Trey,” Alfred said, enjoying a careful sip of his own drink. 

 

“Who were you even on the phone with at this hour, anyway?” Trey asked.

 

Luckily, Alfred had more than prepared for a similar question, and it had taken long enough for Trey to wake up enough to ask it that he’d recovered from how shaken he’d been by the young man’s sudden appearance. “Checking in with Master Bruce. He took Master Dick and Miss Cassandra to the hospital. None of them are injured,” he added when Trey looked up, looking startled, “but Master Dick’s best friend was admitted to hospital in a state of extreme injury, I’m sorry to say. As you’ve never met her and Ace is quite insistent on your sleep not being disrupted--” He nodded to the dog, who wagged his tail, cocking his head at the sound of his name, “--Master Bruce thought we ought to leave you be while he rushed the others to the hospital to visit Miss Gordon.”

 

That did seem to wake Trey up further. “His friend got hurt? What happened?”

 

Alfred sighed, shaking his head. “She was tortured by a local criminal known as the Joker… a profoundly unfunny individual, I assure you.” He glanced up from his morose contemplation of his cocoa to see Trey staring into space, suddenly white as a sheet. “Master Trey? Are you alright?”

 

“Mmmm? Yeah… I’m fine,” Trey said, chugging his cocoa. “Just… tired. I think it’s all catching up to me. I’m gonna go to… back to sleep.”

 

“That sounds like a wise choice, Master Trey,” Alfred said, opting to sit and sip at his own mug while Trey wandered back to his room, Ace in tow. 

 

The Joker. Well, a look of horror was to be expected when bringing up  _ that _ foul creature, but had anybody told Trey about him? Surely not. It was hardly the sort of subject matter to make a lost young man feel safe in his new home. The Arkham lot had come up his first morning here, so possibly he’d looked up such things on the internet, but Alfred couldn’t think that he’d seen the young man actually on a computer. They hadn’t even gotten him a phone yet. Alfred decided he’d have to see to that in the morning. Bruce had any number of spare phones, Trey could take his pick.

 

...after some adjustments had been made, anyway. It would be worth knowing what Trey  _ did _ take it into his head to google. 

  
  
  


{ _ The Watchtower _ }

{ _ July 12, 05:11 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“ _ All twelve are metahumans, but there’s no real pattern or consistency to their powers, _ ” the woman on the screen reported. “ _ And they’ve said there were more that didn’t survive experimentation… a  _ lot _ more. Five teenagers, seven young adults, all either political prisoners or taken from their homes in the middle of the night. Most of them thought they were being taken for conversion therapy. _ ”

 

“Christ…” Black Lightning sighed, rubbing his beard. Sold by their own government. He wished it was harder to believe. As if the neighbourhoods that the Reach metagene-identifying drink had been trialled in hadn’t been a clear enough message. He’d spent weeks enforcing a school-wide ban on the stuff and he hadn’t even been able to keep it out of the hands of his own daughters. “So they don’t have homes to go back to.”

 

“ _ We can put them up here at STAR Labs, but I don’t think staying in a lab is the best thing for them after what they’ve been through,”  _ the doctor said sternly. “ _ You need to get them extradition to somewhere safer as soon as possible. _ ”

 

“Will do,” Black Lightning promised. “Keep them safe, Doctor October.”

 

“ _ Oh, I will _ ,” Doctor October promised with a determined expression before disconnecting the call. 

 

“Access zeta tube logs,” Black Lightning ordered, watching the holoscreen flicker. Twelve survivors out of God only knew how many…

 

Underground metahuman experimentation had been going on ever since The Reach had left Earth, and the Justice League hadn’t  _ known _ .

 

He keyed in the location of the lab they’d raided, then searched for the nearest zeta tube. There was only one in a fifty mile radius--the area was so deep in Siberia that the population was near nil, and the zeta had been set up solely for the purposes of emergency coverage. It had only ever been used three times in the past decade, the third time being seven hours ago. 

 

He checked the League member number, then checked it again, and then a third time, still in some disbelief. The note that the bio-scan had been overridden offered an explanation, but it didn’t change the fact that the override codes were correct.

 

“Call Batman,” he said. The connection beeped for an unusually long time before Batman picked up his comm.

 

“ _ Batman. _ ”

 

“Black Lightning here,” he said. “Batman, did you zeta to Siberia at around twenty-two hundred hours last night?”

 

There was a very long pause, then a dour, “ _ What _ ?”

 

“Did you zeta to Siberia at twenty-two hundred hours last night?” Black Lightning repeated.  _ Did I wake him up? Even  _ he’s _ gotta sleep sometime… _

 

“ _ The Joker got out last night,”  _ Batman said sharply. “ _ I’ve been hunting for that psychopath since twenty-one hundred hours. I’m still looking. I have not, at any time, left Gotham. _ ”

 

Black Lightning wasn’t going to question that. He’d been on a team that had come into contact with the Joker once, and only once, and that had been enough. It wasn’t even as if the man was  _ powerful _ \--aside from a weird resistance to pain and poison, he was an unenhanced human. A team of metahumans could, and did, take him down very easily. It was just that something about him got under your skin, something about the way he talked, something about the way he looked at you, something about the way he  _ laughed.  _ The fact that he’d personally killed, with his own hands, more people than  _ any _ non-enhanced person on Earth, generally in painful and unpleasant ways, was more than enough reason for Batman to take the clown as seriously as he did. “The Team got an emergency signal from Batgirl last night. How is she?”

 

“ _ Still in surgery, _ ” Batman said. “ _ What makes you ask if I went to Siberia? _ ”

 

“Somebody did, using your override codes to bypass the bio-scan,” Black Lightning scan. “I know this is probably a ridiculous question before I even ask it, but did you give your override codes to anybody?”

 

“ _ No _ ,” Batman said, without inflection and somehow still managing to communicate an undertone of  _ obviously _ . 

 

“Is there any way somebody could have accessed your codes?” Black Lightning asked.

 

“ _ If I knew of a way to do that, they wouldn’t be able to do it,”  _ Batman said. “ _ I’ll look into it. What happened in Siberia _ ?”

 

“Another metahuman lab, with twelve metahumans,” Black Lightning explained. “We’re still going through retrieved security footage and interviewing captured staff and the rescued metahumans, but none of the prisoners seem to know who unlocked their cells or deactivated their restraints. The lab had an SOS code that was presumably supposed to go to a related facility, but ended up being broadcast on League channels by accident.”

 

“ _ Hmph _ ,” said Batman, a famous disbeliever in the concept of accidents. “ _ I’m going to send Nightwing up to the Watchtower soon. I need a couple of teams, anybody that can be spared for guard duty on Batgirl and her father until the Joker’s back behind bars.” _

 

“That include metahumans?” Black Lightning asked. “Are you  _ inviting _ metahumans into  _ Gotham _ ?”

 

“ _ Yes, _ ” Batman said shortly, and signed off.

 

_ Well. That settles that for now, I guess. _ He checked the shift logs and saw that Aqualad was overseeing the Team this shift. Most of the available Leaguers were dealing with tracking down leads on what happened in Siberia, but the Team didn’t have any active incidents since responding to Batgirl’s emergency signal. 

 

“Call Aqualad,” he said. The diligent younger hero picked up almost immediately. “Black Lightning here. Prepare to receive Nightwing for a debrief on the situation in Gotham, and as a heads-up, you might want to look at who you’ve got free who’d be interested in going to Gotham… and yes, that includes metas and enhanced heroes.  _ Especially _ them.”

  
  


{ _ Roof of Gotham General Hospital, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 12, 22:15 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“I don’t blame you, Jim, but I don’t think smoking is a habit you want to get back into if you’re going to be spending a lot of time around the hospital.”

 

Conner was secretly very impressed at the way the silver-haired man in the trenchcoat didn’t so much as twitch as Batman appeared. Not even his heartrate jumped. He simply exhaled in a long, slow breath of smoke, exhaustion etched deep into his face.

 

“I know,” he sighed, turning around. He raised an eyebrow as he looked from Superboy to Miss Martian. “More new ones?”

 

“This is Superboy and Miss Martian,” Batman said. “They’ll be leading the teams shadowing both you and your daughter until the Joker is back behind bars.”

 

“So you haven’t found him yet.” The Commissioner didn’t sound surprised. He sounded defeated and angry but so, so tired.

 

Batman nodded. “I’m sorry, Jim,” he said, a softness in his tone that Superboy had thought was marked ‘Robins only’.

 

“No… he’s slippery,” the Commissioner sighed. “I know you did all you could. Hell, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you  _ invite _ Leaguers into the city,” he added, looking at the pair of them. “Sorry,  _ are _ you two Leaguers? I can’t keep track of you all. Six vigilantes are enough for me.”

 

“We’re not in the League, but we do work closely with them,” Miss Martian offered. “Being less publicly known makes it easier for us to work covertly.” She shapeshifted into her preferred human guise.

 

The Commissioner just blinked. “Martian. Right,” he mumbled. “I think I can guess what you’re about, son,” he said to Conner. “We’ve had the big guy in once or twice. Not often. Too much property damage.”

 

“If it helps, I don’t have heat vision,” Conner offered. “I’m just largely indestructible and  _ really  _ good at punching.”

 

“Just,” the Commissioner sighed, closing his eyes. “ _ Just _ indestructible. Jesus Christ…” He sighed heavily again, then opened his eyes. “Who’s gonna be on these teams? More not-Leaguers?”

 

Batman nodded. “Four more, all enhanced humans or nonhumans. Plus Robin, Spoiler and Batgirl, co-ordinating and providing local knowledge. I can vouch personally for all of them, and can provide more details if you feel you need them.”

 

The Commissioner jerked, registering his first sign of shock all night. “Batgirl’s going to be there?” he asked hoarsely, staring at Batman.

 

Batman actually  _ sighed _ . “If you have any questions to ask, Jim,” he said softly, “I won’t lie to you.”

 

The Commissioner squeezed his eyes for a long moment. “Y’know, I’ve never asked about… a lot of things,” he said tightly. “Because I don’t know what I’m more afraid of. That you’ll lie to me… or that you won’t.” He shook his head, sighing. “There’s nothing I need to ask just now. It’s just… she’s my  _ daughter _ .”

 

“I know,” Batman said, still in that soft, gentle voice.

 

“I love her more than  _ anything _ , and that monster  _ knew _ that, that was why he…”

 

“That doesn’t make it your fault, Jim.”   
  


“They’ll need more time, more tests they can’t do until she’s stronger,” the Commissioner continued, as if he hadn’t heard Batman. “But one of the doctors pulled me aside to warn me. She lost so much blood, she might’ve suffered brain damage after she passed out. And the damage to her spine is so bad… she’ll need so much physical therapy, years of it, and even then she might never walk again. She’s done gymnastics since she was four and she might never walk again. All that to hurt me.”

 

“I’m so sorry, Jim.”

 

The Commissioner took a deep breath. “Thanks, but not why I’m talking about this,” he said heavily. “The Joker told me this story… he rambled about a lot of things, but the heart of it was the day he took his chemical dip. If any of it’s true, I might be able to look into it, finally get an ID on him. Maybe it was all bullshit. But the point was--or seemed to be--that one bad day could turn anybody into him, and he wanted to prove it.  _ Anybody _ could be him. Even me. Even you.” He looked over Miss Martian and Superboy. “He brought you up a lot, Batman. If I were you, I’d keep Robin and Batgirl safe in the Batcave until the Joker’s behind bars.”

 

“He’s wrong, Jim,” Batman said firmly. “He could never turn you into something like him. Nothing could.”

 

“‘Course he’s  _ wrong _ ,” the Commissioner said gruffly. “Won’t stop him trying to prove it, if that’s really what this is all about. Or maybe it isn’t. Who knows, with him. I don’t care. But I’m counting on all of you to bring him in. Let him spend the end of his days rotting away in the darkest cell in Arkham because of people who aren’t like him. And if you let him kill another Robin,” he added, “I’m warning you, as a friend--I’m gonna fucking shoot you for ever putting another kid that costume in the first place.”

 

“Understood,” Batman said shortly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who planned to update on Monday, and then, because of upheaval in Summer Event week, lost track of the concept of time and is now confused about how it’s somehow both Wednesday and August? Anyway uuuuuhhh next chapter’s August 13th! 
> 
> If it seems like there’s a shitton of characters in this… there is, but unlike what I tried to juggle in A Better Cage, in this there most of the cast are one-to-two-scene wonders. If you don’t know who a character is from name alone, don’t worry about it. The Gotham fam are the most important characters here. For what it’s worth, I wanted to throw in Jennifer and Anissa Pierce, AKA Lightning and Thunder respectively, because I HELLA loved the Black Lightning show and Thunder is the best super-lesbian. I also wanted to throw in Dr Victoria October because she’s a relatively new minor Batman character who I enjoy, in part because when she was introduced to Batwoman, who, reasonably enough, asked if her name was for real (though do you get to question anybody’s naming choices when you genderswapped your cousin’s fursona?), Dr October replied “my deadname didn’t have half the panache”, which is a good example of how to confirm a character as trans without actually using their deadname, and also means that DC has now made it canon that every character that has an unreasonably great/punny name is trans. You made that official, DC, can’t walk it back now


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leslie and Trey talk health. Spoiler and Raven talk family. Somebody wants to talk to the Red Hood, which is an unusual state of affairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for this one being a little late… I’m on holiday, I lost track of days, forgive me XP

{ _ Wayne Manor, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 14, 11:31 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

Despite officially being the Wayne family’s private doctor, and unofficially Batman’s field medic, it wasn’t often these days that Leslie Thompkins found herself at Wayne Manor. Trouble tended to find her without her having to make house calls. 

 

Come to think of it, the last time she’d been asked to come to the Manor was right before the press conference announcing Cassandra. 

 

“Tell me he’s not adopting another one,” she said when Alfred opened the door. 

 

“Well, this one does appear to be biologically his, so adoption may be unnecessary,” Alfred said, taking her coat.

 

Leslie stopped, staring at him. “Good lord, Alfred, are you serious?”

 

“Always, Doctor,” Alfred sighed. “We’ve done our own DNA tests--we’ll go for an official one once we feel that he’s ready. I’m afraid that, in addition to a number of… suspicious injuries, the young man in question is suffering severe amnesia. Aside from feeling sure that his name is Trey Malone, and that his dog’s name is Ace, he has no knowledge of his past. We’d appreciate if you could try to determine the cause of his amnesia.”

 

“If it’s physical, I can probably figure it out,” Leslie said, following him up the stairs, “but if it’s psychological… if I’ve told Bruce once, I’ve told him a thousand times, I’m a doctor, not a therapist.”

 

“You have indeed said so a great many times,” Alfred agreed. “Now, I believe he was joining Miss Cassandra for her workout… ah-ha.”

 

Two thoughts struck Leslie on walking into Wayne Manor’s gym. The first was that the room was utterly, absurdly overstocked for a home that had never even had a whole five occupants before.

 

The second was that this was the gym that visitors might see, and that the one down in the Batcave was probably  _ so much worse. _

 

At the punching bag, Cassandra seemed to be taking a young man through her workout routine. While, of course, he wasn’t keeping up, he didn’t seem to be on the verge of collapse, either. 

 

“I apologize for interrupting,” Alfred called, “but if I might borrow Master Trey?”

 

The young man turned around and good  _ Lord _ , that was a young Bruce. “He won’t need a DNA test,” Leslie whispered to Alfred. “Good grief, all they’ll need is a photoshoot where they’re standing side-by-side!”

 

“Well, we’d rather not expose Master Trey to the talons of the media  _ just _ yet,” Alfred said quietly as Trey approached. Leslie’s expert eye picked out a familiar patchwork of faint scars along his arms and shoulders before he pulled a sweatshirt on over his tanktop. “Master Trey, may I present Doctor Leslie Thompkins. Doctor Thompkins, this young man is Trey Malone, and your patient for the day.”

 

“Nice to meet you, doctor,” Trey said, wiping his hand on his sweatpants before shaking her hand. “Thanks for showing me your workout, Cass!” he called, turning and waving. “Uh… good luck?”

 

Cass gave him a thumbs-up and waved to Leslie with a bright smile before going back to work on the punching bag.

 

“Nice to see you, Cassandra!” Leslie said, waving back. “Alright, Trey, have they shown you the dungeons here yet?”

 

“The, uh…?” Trey said, raising his eyebrows. “Are pets allowed?” he reached a hand out and down. Leslie followed the motion and saw that she’d walked past a huge, black great dane sleeping just inside of the door, who woke up as soon as Trey scratched his ears and followed them out of the door, tail wagging. 

 

“It isn’t really a regular part of the house, and we thought it might be a bit much for the lad on his first day tour,” Alfred said. “Has anybody mentioned to you that your late grandfather was a surgeon, Master Trey?”

 

“Uh… no, actually,” Trey said.

 

“Doctor Wayne and I used to work at the same hospital, though in different fields,” Doctor Thompkins explained. “Also being the owner of a major corporation in the field of medical research, he did tend to collect prototype equipment to use for any medical issues that came up around the house. Bruce continued the habit, even though he’s not a doctor himself, since he doesn’t much like going to public hospitals.”

 

“Why not?” Trey asked curiously.

 

“Well… when Master Dick was eleven, he had appendicitis, and had to be taken to Gotham General to have an appendectomy,” Alfred explained. “During his convalescence, there was one attempted kidnapping for ransom and two attempts by journalists to break into the room. Master Bruce has had medical issues seen to in-house whenever possible ever since…” He unlocked a room that Trey, from his curious look, hadn’t been into before. “All of these pieces are prototypes, of course, but completed prototypes, naturally. Master Bruce would never countenance the use of unsafe equipment on his family.”

 

“ _ Wow _ ,” Trey whistled, looking around the crowded workroom full of medical equipment. “So what’re you gonna do to me first, doc?”

 

“Ask you questions,” Leslie said, pulling the dust sheet off of a chair for him to sit on and digging in her bag for her clipboard and forms. “First off, have you had any headaches?”

 

“No, I don’t think so…” Trey said, rubbing his head thoughtfully.

 

Leslie took him through the symptoms of head injuries and seizures, drew some blood--mostly for the look of it, since she was sure Bruce had probably done every test she could think of and then some. She gave Trey a general checkup that indicated that he was in very good health aside from the well-treated and healing wound on his shoulder. Most of his older injuries also seemed to have been treated well, aside from one or two that, she’d guess from an eyeball, were the oldest and didn’t seem to have been cared for properly. 

 

“Well, at the moment I wouldn’t say there’s any need for any scans, since you’re not displaying any signs of physical trauma to the head or seizures,” Leslie said, giving him his tank top back to put on. “The only prescription I’d advise right now is a shower, young man. And perhaps a therapy appointment, because if the cause of your trauma isn’t physical, it must be psychological.”

 

“Yeah… anybody you’d recommend?” Trey said, rolling the shirt back on. “I’ve had 2am cocoa and nightmare chat, does that count?”

 

“Possibly, depending on what your nightmares are about,” Leslie said. “Real events, do you think?”

 

“Gotham blowing up, which I don’t think has happened?” Trey said. “And Bruce dying. Al says those are manifestations of subconscious fears. Dunno if they’re much use to figuring out  _ how _ I lost my memories.”

 

“Hmm,” Leslie mused, packing up her things. “Well, I’m not an expert, but I do spend a lot of time around traumatized people, and one thing that might reawaken suppressed memories is returning to where you were first found--where was that?”

 

“Some kinda beach? I don’t know for sure,” Trey confessed, scratching Ace’s ears. “You think something happened to me there? I mean, before the sea monster thing happened?”

 

“I’d be very surprised if something hadn’t,” Leslie said, side-eying the wound on his shoulder, which he’d explained as having been the result of a sea monster attack. It was certainly a new one on her, though the more she thought about it, the more surprising that was. “But reviving traumatic memories can be, well, as you can probably guess… traumatic. Don’t go alone, and be prepared that you may remember some awful things. Only go when you’re sure you’re ready, okay?”

 

“Okay,” Trey said, brushing his hair back out of his eyes, where it had been plastered by pulling his sweater on. “Thanks, doc.” His dog barked, thumping his tail against the ground. “Ace says thanks, too.”

 

“You’re both very welcome,” Leslie said, reaching out a hand. “May I?”

 

“Sure, Ace is generally pretty friendly,” Trey said, gesturing to her to pet the dog. “I think he’s met Bruce before, though. Or do animals always like Bruce that much?”

 

“Well, he does seem to attract lost children like a magnet,” Leslie mused, stroking Ace’s back. “Or maybe they attract him. When he was a child, Thomas was forever complaining about him bringing home hurt wild animals he’d found. He never could abandon anything.”

 

“Yeah,” Trey murmured. “I’m noticing that. Kinda been wondering if it wouldn’t be better for him to just let some things go…”

 

“You may be trying to shut the barn door after the whole building’s burned down, I’m afraid,” Leslie sighed. “Do try not to make his mistakes, won’t you? Whatever happened in your past, it doesn’t have to define you. It might be that you’ve got a chance to start your life over now, and that may not be a bad thing.”

 

“Yeah,” Trey said softly. “Thanks, doc.” Then he  _ smirked _ , striking Leslie again with just  _ how much _ he looked like Bruce. “Hey, are you saying you knew Bruce when he was a kid? He doesn’t talk about being a kid much. Got any embarrassing stories I should know about?”

 

Leslie couldn’t help a smirk of her own. “You know, none of Bruce’s kids have ever asked me that before,” she commented, “and it’s a shame, because I think you’ll love this one. I actually saw it myself, because Thomas had brought him to the hospital one evening--he’d tried to slide down that huge banister in the front hall and broken his ankle…”

  
  


{ _ Near Gotham General Hospital, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 15, 00:03 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

It said a  _ lot _ for how painful it was to watch Barbara lie in bed, unable to maintain consciousness for more than a few minutes and in agonizing pain every time she woke, that Spoiler was starting to  _ hope _ that the Joker would turn up, just so they could finally put him behind bars and not have to be  _ afraid _ of what he was planning next. 

 

“Hey, can you, like… magically trace the Joker?” she asked Raven.

 

“No,” the girl said flatly, not opening her eyes or moving from her meditation pose. “I’ve never met him.”

 

“Wait, are you saying you can track people you’ve met?” Spoiler asked, willingly taking the distraction from paying too much attention to the view through Barbara’s window. The Joker had never been known for sniping, so Batman had told Commissioner Gordon to leave her curtains open so that somebody could maintain line of sight on her at all times. Spoiler understood why it was necessary, but it didn’t make seeing Barbara so badly hurt any easier.

 

“Sort of. I can sense everybody’s thoughts and feelings. People I know are… familiar, and it’s easier to focus on them through the noise,” she said. “I’m not focusing on you right now or anything, but it would make my life a lot easier if you could rein in your frustration,” she added. 

 

“ _ Great _ ,” Spoiler grumbled, resting her head on her folded arms as she looked back down at the hospital. “Sorry, I guess that’s probably not helping.”

 

“No,” Raven said bluntly. After a moment, in a softer voice, she added, “you care a lot about her.”

 

“Yeah,” Spoiler admitted. “I always idolized her, you know? To me, she was  _ the _ girl superhero. Not Wonder Woman or Black Canary or anything, though they’re cool too, but… Batgirl is  _ ours _ . And she doesn’t have superpowers like the others, but she still saves the city and fights supervillains, and she’s not a sidekick like the Robins, she’s her  _ own _ hero… I wanted to  _ be _ her when I was a kid,” she sighed. “And I thought I couldn’t, because my dad was a criminal and wanted me to follow in his footsteps and help with his stealing.”

 

“I can relate,” Raven said. “My dad is a demon.”

 

“Ugh,  _ dads _ , right?” Spoiler laughed, rolling her eyes.

 

“Literally,” Raven clarified.

 

“...Okay,” Spoiler said, blinking at her. “I guess that makes sense, what with…” She waved a hand vaguely at Raven. “Y’know. Not that I mean you’re demonic or anything, just… super magical and stuff.”

 

“It’s fine,” Raven said. She always maintained such a calm tone that it was hard to tell if it actually  _ was _ fine, but then she continued, “you don’t seem very criminal, either.”

 

“Yeah, he taught me some stuff, but instead of being Cluemaster Junior…” Spoiler spread her cape and grinned. “I decided to Spoil his fun. And then I met Robin, and Batman, and Batgirl…” She looked back down, remembering that she needed to keep eyes on Barbara. “And y’know, they say never meet your heroes, that they’ll just disappoint you when you see how human they are, but meeting her just made her cooler, because she’s human and she’s everything else that she is too, plus she’s so damn nice… she’s been like the big sister I always needed, you know?”

 

“I have elder brothers, but they’re also demons,” Raven commented. “We’re not close.” While Steph was still processing this, she said, “Gar says that Miss Martian is his big sister, even though they weren’t born part of the same family. I thought that was just because she gave him her blood, but you and Batgirl don’t share blood.”

 

“Nah, we’re not even the same blood type,” Spoiler said, shaking her head. “But that’s not what it’s about, y’know? ...Do you know?”

 

“My bloodline has always been a great deal of concern for myself and all around me,” Raven said. “I am… not familiar with family that are not blood. But that’s how Robin once described the Gotham vigilantes, so I’ve been curious about you all.”

 

“Well, it’s not exactly a  _ normal _ family situation,” Spoiler said, flicking her cape, “but I’d even rank Batman as family over my dad. I don’t really know how to explain it, but yeah, they’re my family. Although maybe I’m more sort of an in-law…”

 

“What makes them family, if not blood?” Raven asked, now sounding curious.

 

“People you care about,” Spoiler said with a shrug. “People who care about  _ you _ , no matter what, really care about what  _ you _ want and what makes  _ you _ happy. I guess? I don’t know if that helps.”

 

“It does,” Raven said, closing her eyes again and going back to her mediation. “Thank you.”

 

“No problem,” Spoiler said, looking back to Barbara. She was starting to rouse again, and through the bugs they’d placed in the room, Spoiler could hear her gasping in pain. Just hearing it  _ hurt _ . How much worse must it be to  _ feel _ ?

 

Spoiler grit her teeth. If this was what she had to endure to keep Batgirl safe, she’d do it. She’d do whatever it took for the family who’d supported her through everything that they had. 

  
  


{ _ The Narrows, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 15, 00:03 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“Alright, you motherfuckers better be dead or fighting Batman in there, because if you kept me waiting for a fucking drink--” Red Hood called, knocking on the door of the bar where, according to the girls on the corner, his pushers had last been seen. He was not accustomed to being kept waiting when it was time for his people to pay him his cut. They’d all learned not to keep the Red Hood waiting unless they had a  _ damn _ good reason. 

 

Something slammed into the wall hard enough to rattle the door. It sounded exactly like a person being thrown into a hard surface. Red Hood backed away from the door, pulled some krazy glue out of one of his pockets and doused the hinges and edges of the door liberally with it before heading around the side of the building and breaking in as quietly as he could through the supply door at the back. 

 

If it  _ was _ Batman in there, Red Hood didn’t want the Dark Knight to know he was coming… and if it was anybody else, some of Black Mask or Penguin’s goons attacking  _ his _ pushers at one of  _ his _ bars, he didn’t want them getting out before he could deal with them. 

 

As he passed the fusebox, he noticed that all of the fuses had blown. He didn’t see any recognizable damage or bat-devices, but it  _ would _ be Batman’s style to douse the place in darkness before attacking, so he drew his guns, flicking off the safety, in his head as much as on the weapons. He couldn’t afford to let any sentimentality slow him down if Batman spotted him.

 

Sentimentality sure as shit wouldn’t be deterring  _ Bruce _ , after all.

 

The night-vision lenses in his helmet activated automatically in response to the low light levels as he crept through the back room and slowly edged the door open, giving himself a steadily widening view of the room.

 

People were unconscious everywhere--only unconscious, not dead. A quick switch to infrared showed strong heat signatures from all of them, not a one of them a cooling corpse. Most of them were ones he recognized--his pushers, bar regulars, and Emily, the bar lady, who he liked because she took no shit and was  _ very _ straightforward about getting people to pay their tabs. It was so refreshing to talk to somebody with no secrets or ulterior motives, just an open determination to push as much booze as possible to pay for her wife’s cancer treatments. Red Hood tipped well and made it known that the bar was under his protection, and she let him run as many deals as he wanted and stayed open as many hours as he was willing to buy drinks. 

 

_ Alright, old man, you’ve  _ really  _ pissed me off now… _ he thought, pushing the door a little wider, looking up and to either side as he did so. It was  _ extremely _ hard to see Batman when he didn’t want to be seen, no matter how sneaky you were being. As it happened, though, the last man standing in the room was manifestly  _ not _ Batman. 

 

Red Hood didn't recognize the guy, not that the hoodie and the scarf pulled over his face helped. He was fairly big and broad--not as much as Red Hood himself, but definitely capable of shouldering his way through a crowd. He was just standing there, in the middle of the room, ankle-deep in unconscious drug pushers… reading a cigarette packet?

 

“Look at that nicotine content, holy shit...” the guy muttered, apparently to himself. “They’ve gotta taste disgusti--”

 

Capitalizing on the guy’s apparent distraction, Red Hood vaulted the bar, firing for the legs. He didn’t want to kill this guy unless he  _ had _ to--he had  _ way  _ too many questions. 

 

The guy had fast reflexes, though, and was moving as soon as Red Hood was, jumping onto a table and flipping backwards off of it, practically  _ flying _ over the most dangerous mobster in Gotham and swinging down a kick that looked like it was going to  _ hurt _ when it connected with his helmet if Red Hood hadn’t swung up his arms to block the kick. He grabbed the stranger’s leg and flung him into the wall, but the guy took it like a champ, turning to hit the ground running as bullets peppered the wall behind him. He went straight for Red Hood, catching him around the middle in a powerful rugby tackle that slammed him backwards into the bar. Red Hood slammed an elbow into the guy’s back and brought a knee up into his chest at the same time, making the guy grunt but not let go. He threw Red Hood to the ground in some kind of armlock, yanking his guns out of his hands and managing to get three more out of his jacket before Red Hood managed to break the hold.

 

“This is getting beyond a deathwish, pal,” Hood said, rolling to his feet while drawing his sawn-off shotgun, to see the stranger pointing  _ his own fucking guns _ at his helmet.

 

“First thing I wanna promise you is that I do  _ not _ wanna fire these,” the stranger said gruffly. Young, but trying to sound older, Red Hood figured. “I just wanna talk. That’s what I came here for, to talk, but then you kinda, y’know, started shooting at me from the darkness and things kinda escalated from there… I mean, I know I beat up your guys, but they’re a bunch of drug dealing scumbags who really did  _ not _ need to be that rude when I asked how to set up a meeting with you.  _ Are _ you a meeting and talking kinda guy, or…?”

 

“I’m pretty fuckin’ loquacious when I wanna be,” Red Hood said, keeping his shotgun level. “Fine. It’s talking time now. Here’s how it goes: I ask questions and you answer. Let’s start with the easy ones. Who are you and who are you working for?”

 

“I’m not working for anybody, I just wanted to talk to you on my own account,” the guy said, slowly raising his hands and the guns so that they weren’t pointed directly at Red Hood anymore, though given how  _ fast _ the guy had been, he could probably still drill Red Hood in a breath if he wanted to. Besides, Red Hood wouldn’t relax around this guy even if he’d disarmed. He’d noticed the force behind the flying kick and the tackle--this guy was plenty dangerous  _ without _ weapons, and well-trained, too. “You’re a hard man to find, y’know that? I’ll be honest, I didn’t think beating up some of your dudes would actually get your attention.”

 

“Believe me, you have my attention,” Red Hood said coolly. “Most people try to avoid that at all costs. So why the deathwish, punk?”

 

“I mean, I was  _ kinda _ hoping we could talk  _ without _ you trying to kill me, much as I’ve heard you’re into that,” the guy said. “I need your help, Jason.”

 

Red Hood almost shot him on the spot. He settled for shooting a bottle next to the guy. “The name’s Red Hood, and I’ll get yours off your tombstone unless you say something that’s  _ actually _ of interest to me,” he spat. “ _ Why _ are you trying to get my attention? Bear in mind how much I care is waning rapidly and it’s all that’s keeping you alive.”

 

“Okay, look,” the guy sighed, actually setting the guns down. Red Hood made a mental upwards revision of how tough he figured this guy’s hidden body armour was. The way he tanked some of those hits, he had to be wearing something strong. “This is suicidal and I know it, but frankly, I need help. I need help with some stuff that… might be more morally complicated than most of the superheroes around here will deal with." Red Hood snorted. Morally complicated had never been Bruce or Dick’s bag, when it came right down to it. He was still forming opinions on the new kids, but one thing that was obvious was that all three of them were happily dancing to Bruce’s tune. “And here’s the bit that should be right up your grimy, blood-spattered alley--one of those things that might need dealt with in a morally complicated way is the Joker.”

 

“You are one lucky motherfucker, because you said the magic word,” Jason said, lowering his guns but not putting them away. “Unless your idea of ‘helping me’ is reeling me in and then trying to talk me out of killing that deranged clown. I notice that you’ve managed to beat the shit out of a whole roomful of criminals without killing anybody…”  _ And I remember where I’ve seen that flying kick before. That’s one of  _ Dick’s _ moves. I remember him trying to teach it to me. I could never get the hang of it... _ “Who the fuck are you and how do you know me?”

 

“Call me T,” the stranger said. “And I’m not with Batman or anybody like that, if that’s what you’re insinuating, I just figured you wouldn’t be willing to talk to me if I killed your guys. As for how I know you…” He sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “That’s a lot more complicated. You wanna go talk somewhere more private or where there’s someone conscious to serve us drinks? I feel like I’ll need some for this conversation, and I, uh… I don’t think the lady here’s gonna be a fan of mine when she wakes up. I’ll leave a big tip for the property damage.” He reached up under his hoodie, pulling out a roll of notes and peeling a sizeable handful off.

 

“You into business, or do you just have a hell of a sugar daddy?” Jason asked, watching T tuck the money into the tip jar.

 

“You have  _ no _ idea,” T muttered. “Or actually… you do. Lead the way, Red Hood… this is  _ your _ neighbourhood, as I understand.”

  
“We’re only going as far as the roof,  _ T _ ,” Jason said, gesturing with his guns, “with you staying in my line of sight the whole fucking way. What you have to say’ll decide what kind of shots we round out the night with.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Underappreciated characters who deserve more love starring in this chapter: Stephanie Brown, Leslie Thompkins, and Jason Todd going by what I’ve heard about DC’s latest fuckery concerning him.
> 
> Raven and Spoiler was one of those weird character combinations that I’ve never thought of before but when I put them in a scene together, they got along pretty well. I’m still SO excited to see Steph in season 3 of Young Justice. GIVE THE BEST BATGIRL SOME LOVE, DC!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick opens up about Babs. Babs opens up, not to Dick. Robin and Beast Boy get dangerously bored.

{ _ East of Scorseby Sound, Greenland _ }

{ _ July 19, 03:52 GMT _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“I don’t like this,” Artemis grumbled, chin propped up on her hand as she stared out of the bioship’s window. “We’re gonna try catching the creep setting monsters on cities based on a message in a goddamn bottle?”

 

“We’re gonna catch the guy based on Aquaman’s intel on his location, and we’re targeting him specifically because of, yeah, a message in a bottle,” Zatanna corrected. “But it had an atlantean rune drawn on it that drew it directly to Atlantis. Whoever sent that tip, somebody in Atlantis trusts them enough to teach them the rune.”

 

“Somebody in Atlantis trusted  _ Black Manta _ enough to fuck him!” Artemis exclaimed, throwing her hands up. “No offence,” she added to the air.

 

“ _ None taken, _ ” Kaldur said over the comms. “ _ You are both correct. This information cannot be ignored, but being unable to verify its source is suspicious. If it is a trap for the League, or the armies of Atlantis, we will be there instead.” _

 

“Targets of a trap aimed at an army or Superman? Yay,” Raquelle deadpanned. 

 

“C’mon, what’s a little ol’ army to some OG members of the Team?” Dick said, winking at her. Artemis exchanged a look with Zatanna. “What? What was that face?”

 

“Dick, you might be able to fool most people, but you’re on a ship with two of your exes and a best friend,” Artemis said, gesturing to Raquelle and Zatanna. “We’re gonna be staking this area out for a while, unless somebody from Alpha Team gets contact first. There’s no escape.”

 

“Oh, good, I wasn’t the one who had to bring it up,” Zatanna sighed. “C’mon, Dick, what’s wrong? You’ve been weighed down since you signed on for this mission.”

 

“Got anything to do with why we didn’t actually need a crowbar to get you out of Gotham just now?” Raquelle prodded. “How’s Babs?”

 

Dick sighed, sagging. He glanced sideways at the comm light for a moment, but it wasn’t worth risking Kaldur, M’gann or Conner getting attacked and being unable to call for backup. Besides, they were his friends too. Some of his best friends.

 

But none of them were his  _ best _ friend.

 

“...I keep wishing I could talk to Babs about all this,” he muttered, swivelling his chair around so he could face the three women he was sharing the bioship with. He wanted to hide, but hated the thought of  _ looking _ like he was hiding. “But, well… I can’t talk to Babs. At all. That’s the whole problem.”

 

“Look, Dick, I know it can’t be fun seeing her like that,” Artemis said, frowning, “but for her sake, you’ve gotta square up and--”

 

“It  _ does _ kill me to see her like that,” Dick interrupted, “but if she’d let me, I’d be in there right now and yeah, Raquelle, the end of the goddamn world wouldn’t get me out. But she doesn’t want  _ any _ visitors. Including me.”

 

“Wait, really?” Zatanna said in surprise. “I mean, I was upset she didn’t want any of us around, but I know it’s gotta be hard for her to have too many people see her like that…”

 

“And she doesn’t want  _ anybody _ to see her like that,” Dick said, slumping glumly. “Including me. And I… I know she probably didn’t  _ mean _ a lot of what she said, she’s just unhappy about being tortured and traumatized and under surveillance and I keep thinking I should go back and talk to her again, but she told me to get the fuck out and not come back and I can’t just ignore that and push in to make  _ me _ feel better, but what if she regrets what she said but she doesn’t see  _ anybody _ except her dad, and she’s not gonna tell  _ him _ about the argument, and it  _ would _ make her feel better if I acted like nothing happened, but I can’t just  _ assume _ that--”

 

“Okay, whoa, holy shit, that’s actually  _ too much _ sharing, which is something I  _ never _ thought I’d say to an ex,” Raquelle said, holding up her hands. “I mean, yeah, you’re not wrong, you probably shouldn’t barge in there like nothing happened, but staying away probably isn’t any good for either of you, even if she doesn’t see it that way…”

 

“Yeah, you’re probably right that she’s pretty messed up and saying shit she doesn’t mean just now, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore her telling you to stay away,” Artemis agreed, folding her arms and looking up thoughtfully. 

 

“Maybe some of us  _ should _ go visit her,” Zatanna suggested. “Brooding alone is  _ not _ healthy. Just look at Batman. No offence,” she added.

 

“None taken,” Dick said. “He’d probably agree.”

 

“And she hasn’t told  _ us  _ to our _ faces _ to go away,” Artemis added. “If it really freaks her out, we can leave right away, but maybe at this point she wants some company, y’know?”

 

“ _ Sorry to butt in, but we’ve been checking in with the kids’ surveillance and they think she needs distraction _ , bad,” M’gann put in over the comm. “ _ It feels kinda invasive, but she spends a lot of time crying, especially after PT. She’s in a lot of pain, physically and otherwise. _ ”

 

“ _ It  _ is _ invasive, but it’s better than the Joker getting her again, and she knows it,”  _ Conner added. “ _ But if she’s gotta be watched anyway, wouldn’t it be better to be by somebody in her room she can talk to? _ ”

 

“She doesn’t see it that way,” Dick sighed dejectedly. “And it’s not just now. It’s…” He ran a hand through his hair. “This is the part that’s especially hard to talk to about with my exes.”

 

“Oh, shit, now it’s  _ us  _ who can’t escape,” Raquelle said, looking around desperately. “Look, if you’re about to tell us you two were fucking, I’m sorry but everybody knew that already.”

 

“We’re not--I mean-- _ everybody _ ?” Dick said, looking around. All three women stared back at him with blank ‘ _ duh _ ’ expressions. He could practically  _ hear _ M’gann, Conner and Kaldur rolling their eyes over the comms. “Shit. I mean, it’s not like we slept together a  _ lot _ , just a few times, and each time we decided… it didn’t have to mean anything except fun, y’know? We’re best friends who can have fun.”

 

“ _ So much _ fun,” Zatanna sighed. “Just me reminiscing, not making a move. You and I already know that  _ we _ wouldn’t work, but you and Babs really would. We’ve all been saying it for  _ years _ .”

 

“Honestly? If she was willing to actually be a  _ couple _ , I would’ve thrown all in and never looked back,” Dick admitted. “And we’ve talked about it, a few times, but she was never ready… or anyway, she never thought  _ I _ was totally ready, and maybe she wasn’t wrong, but… I could put the work in, for her, to be the boyfriend she deserves. I  _ want _ to be. And I think, for a long time now, I’ve assumed we  _ would _ end up there, eventually. We’d be together one day, when the stars aligned. But now she’s gone from ‘not yet’ to ‘never, ever’. She doesn’t want me to  _ waste my life _ on her, and when I tried to tell her that she’s not a waste her life isn’t  _ over _ , she yelled at me for  _ pitying _ her and--” He buried his head in his hands. “I know she’s… going through a lot now, she hasn’t adjusted to what’s happened yet, but god, just… she nearly  _ died _ , and I am  _ so fucking scared _ of losing her, even if all she wants is to be friends now, I don’t care,  _ anything _ …”

 

“Dick, you need to give her time,” Zatanna said, getting up and giving him a hug. “Don’t get sucked up worrying about the worst case scenario. She’s probably doing enough of that for the both of you.”

 

“Yeah, and since your birth certificate probably says ‘Richard Ray Of Fucking Sunshine Grayson’, Artemis added, “that’s the Dick she needs to see next time you see her, and you  _ will _ , okay? Seriously, we’ll come up with something, restore the natural order and get Babs some goddamn emotional support whether she likes it or not.”

 

“Thanks for telling us, though,” Raquelle put in. “I think we all figured that, even if she didn’t want to see most people, she still had you looking after her. If she’s alone, that’s  _ not _ good.”

 

“ _ If it makes you feel any better, the kids are saying it’s a quiet night and she’s actually managed to sleep more than an hour, though she’s up again now, _ ” M’gann put in. “ _ They’ve jumped a couple muggings out of sheer boredom. I know they’re not supposed to leave their posts, but I’m not sure I can stop them without being on-site… _ ”

 

“Gotham’s never short of muggings, and we need you here tonight,” Dick said, taking a deep breath. “Thanks, guys. Sorry if I freaked you out. Usually, if I’m having a little meltdown, Babs is the only one who sees it.”

 

“Well, no wonder she kicked you out,” Raquelle joked. “Did we dodge a bullet or  _ what _ , Zee?”

 

“ _ Target _ !” Conner reported abruptly. “ _ I see him, and I see a magic circle, and chanting is definitely happening… _ ”

 

Dick spun back to the control console. “League just got contact off the coast of Sydney,” he said as a marker flashed up onscreen. “And Rio de Janeiro. And Ketchikan…”

 

“ _ Then let us end that chanting and see if that works, _ ” Kaldur suggested. “ _ Bring the bioship down so we can transform her into underwater combat mode. _ ”

 

“On it,” Artemis said, putting her hands on the control globes and nosediving the ship into the choppy sea.

  
  


{ _ Gotham General Hospital, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 18, 11:52 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“Hey, uh… sorry to interrupt? I mean, it doesn’t sound like I woke you.”

 

Barbara wiped her eyes and glared over her shoulder at the young man sidling in the door, looking warily at her as if she was a bomb about to go off. She certainly  _ felt _ like one.  _ Tall, black hair, blue eyes… ah.  _ “These aren’t visiting hours,” she snapped.

 

“Yeah, but turns out if you’re walking around the Thomas Wayne wing with a guy who works for Bruce Wayne, you can pretty much go wherever,” the young man said, fidgeting with his hair. “I mean, I can leave, I’m just not allowed out in daylight until I’m ready for the press to find out about me and, well, I’m not. But I kinda wanted to meet you. Sorry, I haven’t--my name’s Trey. Trey Malone.”

 

“The new brother Dick’s been so nervous about,” Barbara said. 

 

He didn’t seem surprised by this, just nodding. “And you’re the Babs he’s been so upset about,” he said. “He wasn’t kidding. If looks could kill, I’d be a shadow on the wall by now.  _ Should _ I go? Are you trying to sleep?”

 

“I already slept an hour, that seems to be all I’m getting,” Barbara sighed, sitting up. “Come on in. I’m sorry for snapping. I guess I really could use some company.”

 

“Eh, I think you’re allowed,” Trey said, gesturing to her as he walked over to sit down on the chair next to her bed. “What with... every… thing… and you’d probably talk about literally anything else, I’m betting.”

 

“Almost anything else,” Barbara agreed, looking him over carefully. His eyes  _ did _ look like Bruce’s, though there was an anxious look to them that she didn’t think had ever resided in Bruce Wayne’s eyes in his  _ life _ . “So, how’re you feeling about the whole incoming press thing? Dick hated the press, still does, although his adoption went hand in hand with the worst thing that ever happened to him, so it was never going to be a fun time for him.”

 

“Yeah… I’m not excited about it,” Trey admitted. “Kinda wondering if I can put it off forever. Take up residence as the weird secret relative in the attic, plus dog. I would’ve brought him, but he’s big and loud. Great company, though. Hugging a big dog is very grounding. Soon as you get out of that bed, I recommend it.”

 

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Barbara said, a little disarmed by how quickly he’d gone from anxious to casual, and how he  _ didn’t  _ keep glancing at her legs. Her dad couldn’t  _ stop _ doing it. Instead, he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of her face, which was… disarming. With unwashed hair and tear tracks under her black eyes, she could not possibly be at her most attractive, but he was smiling at her like he was talking to an old friend, not looking sadly or with pity at a victim. “What’s Dick been telling you about me?”

 

“Uh… not much coherent, actually,” Trey admitted. “I just get the resounding impression that you’re the most amazing person who’s ever lived and he’s drowning a little every day he’s not allowed to come talk to you.” Barbara looked away sharply. “Look, I swear he didn’t bribe me to come talk to you for him, it’s just that you did ask.”

 

“Yeah, I did,” Barbara admitted, still staring out of the window. She could almost make out shapes on the rooftop that offered the best vantage point of her room, though she wasn’t sure who was up there tonight. “He has better things to do than worry about me.”

 

“Probably, but I’m not sure he can do ‘em without getting to see that you’re okay,” Trey said. 

 

Barbara whipped an incredulous glare at him. “Do I  _ look _ okay?” she said scathingly, gesturing at her body.

 

“Nah, you look real fucked up,” Trey said with a shrug, “but you still  _ sound _ like the boss ass bitch Dick made you out to be anyway, and you’ve sure got the eyes of one, so I’d put cred on you  _ being _ okay one day. Oh, uh, boss ass bitch are my words, not his,” he added quickly. “I’m paraphrasing.”

 

“They’re trying to be positive, but I can tell I’m not going to walk again,” Barbara said quietly, unsure of why she was telling all this to somebody she’d just met. Maybe it was the disarming way he talked to her that made her want to reciprocate, maybe it was just easier to talk to somebody who wasn’t already emotionally involved in the situation, or maybe she was just that fucked up right now. “Not unassisted. I’m gonna be in a chair the rest of my life.”

 

“And that sucks all  _ kinds _ of ass,” Trey said, looking down. “Dick said you were a gymnast. That sucks ass  _ and _ balls, and not nice ones, ugly hairy ones. I don’t wanna give you the ‘it’s not the end of the world’ shit because it does suck, so hard, but, well, it’s not, you know? Sorry, I’m getting into cliches, I’m gonna shut up now.”

 

“Probably a good idea,” Barbara said, clutching the sheets over her legs.  _ God, I wish I could see the future he seems to be seeing for me. But maybe it’s easier to see the future when it’s all you’ve got.  _ “Actually, don’t, I let you in to distract me from the constant pain.”

 

Trey gasped dramatically, clutching his chest. “Are you saying I could be anybody?” he said, affecting a wounded look.

 

“Are you sure it’s Bruce you’re related to, not Dick?” Barbara asked. “How do you feel about  _ that _ ? Suddenly being Bruce Wayne’s kid is a weird experience for everybody, but it seems to go different every time.”

 

“Well, it’s… a lot,” Trey said with another shrug. “Not that I had much to compare it to or anything, but maybe that makes it worse. I’m not really drowning in alternatives, either… aw, that makes it sound like shit. It’s not. Bruce is a pretty weird guy, but it seems pretty benign. I feel like he’s doing his best. Dick’s… I’ll skip that. Cass is super cool. She’s weird too, but in good ways, mostly. Her workout’s  _ inhuman,  _ though.”

 

“Oh my god, you tried to  _ work out _ with her? And nobody stopped you?!” Barbara gasped. “I’m suing your whole family for child abuse.”

 

“Hey, I’m twenty! ...Probably? Maybe? I’m bucking for twenty-one but Alfred won’t let me drink until we know for sure,” Trey protested.

 

“Then you’ve learned who the true power behind the throne in that house is,” Barbara said with a sage nod.

 

“Okay, question I feel weird about asking everyone there: is Alfred sort of our grandpa or what?” Trey asked. “Like, Di--I  _ heard _ that he raised Bruce after his parents died, but nobody ever really calls him Bruce’s surrogate dad. He totally talks to Bruce like his grown-up kid, though, when he’s not talking like somebody from some kinda Victorian England movie.”

 

“Yeah, the smart money is that Bruce thinks of him like a dad but will never say it because the man has more issues than Marvel comics,” Barbara said with a shrug. “Dick says he’s somewhere between grandpa and mom. You  _ can _ talk about Dick, by the way.”

 

“Wasn’t sure if it would be weird to bring him up, but I guess obviously  _ not _ bringing him up just makes it weirder,” Trey agreed. “I dunno, what do you think? Should I keep putting off the public thing until I know more, or should I just bite the bullet? You never know, between all the bullshit and speculation, one of them might actually dig something up.”

 

_ Clark’s probably already looking, in exchange for getting to break the story when he finds something, _ Barbara figured. “I’d recommend holding off until you know more,” she said. “When it comes to press control, both my dad and everyone in Bruce Wayne’s orbit agrees that you  _ have _ to control the story, and you can’t do that if you don’t  _ know _ the story. If you don’t know what shit lies in your past, the  _ last _ way you want to find out is a Fox head screaming it in your face.”

 

“You mean the angry TV channel, right?” Trey said nervously. “Because, like, one of the first things I remember seeing is a giant sea monster fighting some people who could fly. There aren’t disembodied animal heads flying around screaming people’s secrets at them, are there?”

 

“There’s--no, of  _ course _ there’s--oh my  _ god _ ,” Barbara giggled, unable to  _ stop _ at both the sheer absurdity of the mental image and the fact that, the more she thought about it, the more she realized it was a pretty legitimate question from Trey’s position. “N-no, there’s no… pffft… HA!” She gave up as full-fledged laughter burst out of her, before curling up, gasping in pain.

 

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Trey said, jumping to his feet. “Oh, shit, you’ve probably got busted ribs, I shouldn’t be making you laugh--”

 

“It’s… okay…” Barbara gasped as she fought to control her breathing.  _ You  _ know _ how to breathe through broken ribs, girl, _ she reminded herself.  _ You’ve done it before. Forgetting all your training again already, Batgirl?  _ Breathe. “First time I’ve laughed since… I don’t know. Before. Worth it. Thanks, Trey.”

 

“Anytime,” Trey said, slowly sitting down again. 

 

“Master Trey,  _ what _ exactly is going on in here?” Alfred said, sticking his head around the door. “There’s a nurse heading this way looking  _ very _ worried. Hello, Miss Gordon,” he added. “It’s a sincere pleasure to see you looking cheerful.”

 

“Good to see you too, Alfred,” Barbara said, and it really  _ was _ . “I’m fine, I just spiked my heart rate by laughing.”

 

“Certainly one of the better ways to do that,” Alfred agreed. “Come along, Master Trey, it’s past midnight. Miss Gordon, I hope you’ll permit us to call on you again during more sociable hours?”

 

“...Cass can visit if she wants,” Barbara decided. The girl was, in an emotional sense, compulsively honest, since from her point of view, so was everyone else. She’d been scared to see her own fear of being broken reflected back in Cass’ face, confirming it, but now there was a glimmer of hope that she’d see something else.  _ Anything _ else. 

 

She was the goddamn  _ Batgirl _ . She’d worked miracles before on less than a glimmer of hope. 

 

“See you again, I hope, Barbara,” Trey said, waving as he got up, just as Nurse Espinosa pushed past Alfred.

 

“My friends call me Babs,” Barbara offered, waving him out. “See you, Trey. I’m okay, I swear, I just started laughing…”

 

“Laughing?” the nurse said, looking from the monitors to Barbara, a smile spreading across her face. “Already? That’s wonderful! I’m so glad to hear it! I was starting to think even getting a smile out of you ever again was gonna take a miracle!”

 

Barbara smiled at her.  _ Look at that, working miracles already. Go, me. _

  
  


{ _ Rooftops, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 18, 11:52 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“Hey, Rob, guess what I am!”

 

“Beast Boy, suddenly turning into a bat was funny  _ once _ ,” Robin said, taking a moment from methodically scanning the streets below to roll his eyes. 

 

“Wrong,” the little green bat said, hanging from the end of Robin’s bo staff. “It’s  _ hilarious _ , and it’s hilarious  _ every time _ . Careful, you let your sense of humour slide and they’ll take away the Robin costume and turn you into a mini-Batman. Batboy?”

 

“Thought you were jockeying for that position,” Robin said, shaking the other young hero off of his bo staff. “Now ssshhh. Something’s happening down there.”

 

“Really?” Gar flew off in the direction that Robin was pointing. “ _ So, turns out bats really can’t see worth a damn, _ ” he added over the comm, “ _ but given context clues, like this being Gotham, I think it’s a mugging. _ ”

 

“Don’t need to be a bat  _ or _ a detective to tell that,” Robin said, whipping out his grapple to slow his descent to non-leg-breaking speeds as he swooped into the alley, effortlessly disarming and knocking down the the three thugs who were cornering a cowering woman. 

 

“ _ You got this? _ ” Spoiler asked over the comms. 

 

“Already done and dusted,” Robin said, looking around the unconscious men. There was an abrupt squeak behind him. “Beast--?”

 

He turned just in time to see the end of the  _ ridiculously _ oversized mallet for a split second before it swung into his face, and then he saw nothing but blackness.

  
  


{ _ Rooftops, Gotham _ }

{ _ July 18, 11:56 EST _ }

{ _ 2018--Team Year Eight} _

 

“Robin, Beast Boy, you back in position?” Cyborg asked. “C’mon, guys, you know Miss Martian left me in charge, that means you gotta check in.”

 

There were several seconds of deafening silence over the comms. “ _ Something’s wrong, _ ” Raven said. “ _ If I reach out, I can find Beast Boy… but I can’t find Robin.” _

 

“ _ Robin _ ?” Spoiler called. “ _ Robin! Answer, dammit _ !”

 

“Spoiler, keep it cool, you and Raven head to that position, but keep  _ sharp _ ,” he ordered. “I’m on my way. Starfire, Batgirl, stay where you are, keep your eyes on Miss Gordon. C’mon, let’s check it out,” he told Wonder Girl.

 

“Lead the way,” she said, looking anxious, her fists already tightly balled and raised. He’d heard that she and Robin had once been a thing, and while they hadn’t had the best of breakups, you wouldn’t know it from their professionalism as teammates--or, clearly, her concern for Robin’s safety. 

 

He flew as fast as he could, tracking Robin and Beast Boy’s comms, scanning the area once he was immediately overhead. He picked up the heat shapes of Spoiler, Raven and Beast Boy, three other unknown but unmoving heat signs… and an odd electrical signal directly on top of Beast Boy. 

 

“No active hostiles, but look alive,” he said, descending into the grimy alleyway. The three unknown shapes were three unconscious men, showing all the symptoms of men who’d had a Robin drop unexpectedly on their heads. There was no sign of Robin himself, but he could see Beast Boy on the ground, in humanoid form, also unconscious.

 

There was a bomb strapped to his chest.

 

“Nobody else come down here,” Cyborg ordered, scanning the device.  _ Fucking lead lining… _ “there’s a bomb.” The casing on his chest was connected to several tightly-packed rolls wrapped around Beast Boy’s torso.

 

“ _ A  _ bomb _?! What the hell?! _ ” Spoiler exclaimed. 

 

“I don’t know, lemme take a look,” Cyborg said, fighting to keep his own cool.  _ Really? This has gotta happen the first time  _ I’m  _ in charge? The  _ one _ night Miss Martian and Superboy are on the other side of the damn planet doing League shit?! _

 

He took a deep breath.  _ Game on, Vic. Focus. Access bomb defusal subroutines. _ His eyepiece immediately picked out a panel that could be removed on the device, and one of his mechanical fingers unfolded to reveal a screwdriver.  _ Learn something new every day. Okay then… _ “I’m removing a panel on the bomb now,” he said. “If this goes south, Wonder Girl, you’re in charge. Just for the hell of it, you radio this in to the Team  _ now _ , let ‘em know what’s happening and that we’ve lost track of Robin.”

 

“ _ Can’t you track his comm _ ?” Spoiler asked.

 

Cyborg glanced to the ground, scanner picking it up in a second. “It’s been abandoned here,” he said. “Somebody took it out. Now hush and let me look at this thing.”

 

The panel had eight screws holding it in place instead of the usual four, and he had to unscrew them as slowly and gently as he could, in case there was a mercury trigger inside. He tuned out the conversation between Wonder Girl and Guardian, knowing that if he was specifically called on, he’d hear it. 

 

_...six… seven… _

 

He was working on the last screw when Beast Boy moaned, shifting a little as his eyes started to flutter.

 

“ _ Don’t _ move!” Cyborg ordered sharply, pulling out the last screw and pulling the panel aside. It was too late, though. Beast Boy sat up, and behind the panel was something red--

 

The rolls packed all around Beast Boy burst, spewing confetti into the air, while a clearly prerecorded voice began to cackle madly and repeatedly on a short loop. Beast Boy gaped down at his chest, where the casing was still strapped, now only displaying a note written in red. 

 

_ A bird in the hand is worth two in the grave! HA-HA! _

  
“Oh,  _ fuck _ ,” Cyborg whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a hot minute, hasn’t it? Sorry about the long delay on this one, I had a downer dip, and then one of my coworkers gave me a bottle of plum wine her husband had brewed for my birthday and I had a nice evening and wound up feeling good enough to write. This has been edited sober, I promise :P
> 
> Hopefully the next one will be along faster, though in fairness, most of the next one has already been written. It’s fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun.

**Author's Note:**

> Just to pre-empt any disappointment, I wanted to put YJ versions of Raven, Starfire and Cyborg in this, but it’s more for my own amusement than because they’re particularly crucial to the story, which is mainly gonna be focused on the Batfam. This is primarily a Batman Beyond crossover, not a Teen Titans crossover.


End file.
